We continue to be in the middle of the Covid-driven disaster. It’s a complete disaster in terms of sickness, death, isolation, depression and anxiety, loss of income, unemployment, closure of small businesses and collapse of the economy caused by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Populations across the globe stand stranded in a rudderless boat to navigate the disaster. They don’t know who is going to make it to safety and who will be consumed in the disaster. Reason is simple. We are yet to see a credible cure to this fatal disease.
Of course, medical scientists have been able to invent a vaccine to fight the virus and vaccination has been going on around the world in full swing. However, the vaccination is dubbed as a hope and not the guaranteed foolproof protection against the virus. The global debate on the vaccines’ effectiveness against this viral disease has put people in a dilemma – to get vaccinated or not.
Anyways, there is a consensus that vaccination at the moment is the most important ‘protective’ gear to combat the virus. This is in addition to the standard operating procedures (SOPs) such as social distancing, wearing a good quality mask and use of sanitizers prescribed by the world health organization (WHO).
Let me today not pick the disaster which the virus has caused to the economy, but talk about a section of white coat ‘Covid warriors’ who have been behaving as entrepreneurs and capitalizing on the Covid crisis to earn profits.
Let me try to explain. Entrepreneurship is always an exciting business, especially in the best of times. But, it’s never without risks. As we are in the second year of the pandemic, the current period can be called “the worst of times” that the countries across the globe have collectively endured (and continue to endure) in recent memory. In a magnitude of crisis like the one we are facing due to pandemic, most of the people avoid risk.
However, there is always a special breed of individuals/entrepreneurs for whom challenges owing to “the worst times” are exhilarating rather than fear-inducing. Such types of entrepreneurs respond to the crisis-induced changes by not digging, but pivoting their heels. They are always keen to turn crises around them into opportunities and flourish their entrepreneurship.
Among this special breed of entrepreneurs, we have a segment called ‘holy entrepreneurs’ who are very artistic in capitalizing on the ongoing extreme health emergency. The more the sufferings of common people, the more are their profits. The ‘holy entrepreneurship’ does not bear any risk and serves them without any loss. I am sure, for this type of ‘entrepreneurship’ there must be no concept of balance sheet, account auditing or ‘menace’ of filing any type of tax return – be it income tax or sales tax return. These ‘holy entrepreneurs’ don’t fall under the purview of the Goods & Services Tax (GST). Their earning is tax-free for being ‘holy’.
Now let me disclose why I have been prompted to pick these ‘holy entrepreneurs’ for today’s column. For the past week or so, an unfortunate incident was lingering on my mind where I came to know about a breed of ‘Covid warriors’ who are actually performing as ‘holy entrepreneurs’. I browsed the search engines to find something similar to the incident, which I came across. But I didn’t find any such reference similar to the incident anywhere in the world where medical professionals have used (are using) corona shields to garner business. However, I found an appropriate line for such ‘holy entrepreneurs’ – ‘Corona Exploitation Opportunists’ (CEOs) in an article published in The Times of Israel. Even as the author in the article has described Israeli politicians in power as CEOs, I found the line – ‘Corona Exploitation Opportunists’ – fitting to the section of our medical professionals who work as ‘holy entrepreneurs’.
Now, let me share the incident which I encountered at a private clinic of a ‘prominent’ senior doctor. Some time back during the ongoing second Covid wave, I received an SOS message from a close family member. His teenage son had contracted Covid-19 infection. Even as he had immediately started medication for his ‘positive’ son on the advice of a leading pediatrician living in his vicinity, he urged me to accompany him to a ‘relevant’ consultant to be on safer side. After some hectic efforts, we were successful to get an appointment, timed around noon, with the consultant, who had gained popularity as one of the Covid specialists. The very first sight of the consultant’s clinic (actually a residential house) was most disturbing. It was full of chaos and confusion. A huge number of Covid positive patients mingled with non Covid patients were desperately waiting for the call of the ‘expert’ doctor. The scene was horrifying as most of the patients were having acute cough and high fever and some patients were on oxygen. We were asked to wait with a group of around 20 Covid positive patients who were there since 7 A.M. waiting for their turn. Most of the patients were in miserable condition with acute breathlessness. On enquiring, someone whispered ‘doctor sahib is in the meeting with some TV channels’.
It was shocking to see that the ‘Covid-specialist’ consultant, who has been spending good time with media outlets all the time preaching Covid safety measures, was brazenly violating guidelines and Covid SOPs at his private clinic. Meanwhile, we were called for the consultation at around 7 P.M. It was again an unfortunate scene inside the consultant’s room. He was busy on a live TV panel discussion talking about Covid infection and stressing hard for observing SOPs to arrest the spread of the virus. It was only after a wait of 30 minutes, he attended us. It took him a few minutes to prescribe medicines. Even as we had got all relevant diagnostic tests done, he tried to force us to repeat the test at his ‘personal’ diagnostic lab established in the clinic. Notably, all patients, Covid positive or negative, are mandatorily subjected to a series of tests and imaging, costing, at least, Rs.5000 to Rs.8000 per patient. We asked for the possibility of telephonic consultation in case of an emergency. Even as he shared his WhatsApp number, he never answered our SOS messages.
Precisely, we could infer that this government employed consultant belongs to a section of medical professionals and is into ‘holy entrepreneurship’ and perfectly matches the Israeli writer’s line: ‘Corona Exploitation Opportunist’.
We were not the lone persons at the clinic angered at the behavior of the so-called ‘Covid expert’. Others too were spitting venom, but Covid infection had left them hapless.
Basically, anger against doctors at our place is not a new phenomenon. The sacrosanct chord in doctor-patient relationship has weakened over a period of time, which has adversely impacted the performance of our human savings institutes.
Owing to the breed of ‘holy entrepreneurs’ the public is losing fast their trust in doctors. Today, there is a growing feeling among the people that their health concerns are not seriously taken care of despite paying treatment expenses through their nose.
Here I am reminded of an old proverb that “Doctor is the second God on this Earth”. For a patient, it’s the doctor who can rescue him from the clutches of death. This unflinching faith on doctors has never challenged their status as ‘second God’. We observe that a common man will fight for one or two rupee with a vegetable /fruit vendor but will never confront a doctor on treatment pricing. The reason is simple: For him this ‘second God’ is the only fervent hope to save him from getting consumed by a disease.
But do our ‘holy’ professionals (doctors) fit this adage?
Meanwhile, there is a need to take certain concrete steps to make this most important health infrastructure in terms of human resources, especially doctors accountable to the system. Covid-19 outbreak has exposed some unhealthy practices of a breed of medical professionals especially those enjoying higher positions in the fraternity subjecting common patients to a lot of inconvenience. Making hay at the cost of pain and sufferings of Covid positive patients is simply a criminal act, as they take undue advantage of the helplessness of such patients. It also needs to be noted that such a section of doctors very cleverly maintain very close liaison with who is who in the administration and simultaneously keep friendly liaison with media so that their misdeeds get unnoticed or overlooked by them.
There is a need to conduct surprise visits to clinics run by government doctors. The infrastructure in terms of diagnostic facilities created needs to be subjected to scrutiny.
(The views are of the author & not the institution he works for)