[ Bengia Ajum ]
LONGDING, 29 Nov: In a classic case of VIP privilege, a medical team, which included senior doctors, had to face the humiliation of being asked to vacate their allotted rooms in the PWD IB here recently, when the team was in the middle of conducting a medical camp at the district hospital.
On the 23rd of this month, when a surgical team was carrying out pre-operative screening of patients at the district hospital (DH) here, the medical team, including senior surgeons, was asked to vacate the rooms immediately.
Apparently, a senior BJP leader, along with party workers, was visiting Longding and the rooms had to be vacated for them.
The doctors and the accompanying staffers were organising the medical camp as part of the cataract blindness backlog-free campaign, which is an initiative under the National Programme for Control of Blindness and Visual Impairment under the Pradhan Mantri Netra Jyoti Abhiyan.
Under it, cataract patients are identified and operated on free of cost. This is done to reduce cases of blindness/visual impairment due to cataract. The campaign was carried out in Longding district from 17 to 25 November.
A 14-member team, including two surgeons from different districts, had been assigned to conduct the camp.
“Our room was booked till 26 November. Initially we booked seven rooms and accordingly, rooms were allotted. Accordingly, the survey team, consisting of eight members, arrived on 16 November, and they were accommodated. The survey team left on 21 November after completing their door-to-door survey. The surgical team arrived in batches on 21 and 22 November,” said a doctor who was part of the campaign.
However, on the night of 22 November, the team was instructed to vacate three rooms to make way for the visit of the BJP leaders. They complied and vacated three rooms the next morning. But to the utter shock of the medical team, they were reportedly asked to vacate all the rooms in the middle of camp.
“On 23rd November, when we were conducting pre-operative screening of patients, we were asked to immediately vacate the room. At around 12:30 pm, we were compelled to abandon the patients to vacate the rooms, thus leaving many patients confused and disconcerted.
“A chaos-like situation had evolved in the district hospital because the teams had to forsake the screening of the patients just for the sake of evacuating their rooms.”
“The DH staff had a tough time explaining and clarifying the reasons and calming the fear-stricken patients and their attendants,” the doctor added.
The medical team was later shifted to a private hotel after much difficulty.
Expressing resentment over the incident, the medical team wondered whether it is ethically correct to forcibly evict a government official on government duty from an allotted room in a government facility.
“The medical team, including a senior surgeon, which was working for the larger interest of humankind, was humiliated. It was a big insult and humiliation to the team and to the medical fraternity as a whole. They were providing public-cum-health services to the needy poor patients in the area,” the doctor said.
The district administration reportedly threatened the medical team, saying that it would issue an eviction order in case the team failed to vacate the rooms for the BJP leaders.