Whenever a patient dies during child birth, during or soon after operations or shortly after medication including injections, the management of a flourishing private

hospital pays Rs 20 lakh to the bereaved family for the understanding that there will be no hue and cry. The doctors feel insecure while the management knows that if there is adverse publicity business will be affected. The convenient charge is that the Government doctors who are indulging in private practice with immunity have neglected the patients in the Government hospitals since their attention is mainly focused on the private hospitals. Inquiries show that the erring doctor and the management pay these amounts to the bereaved families on a fifty - fifty basis.

However, whenever there are deaths in the Government hospitals, such illegal and clandestine payments cannot be made. Invariably the Joint Action Committees which were hastily formed to champion the cause of the bereaved families will make several demands. In a recent case involving a Government hospital, the authority got a memorandum demanding Rs 30 lakhs as compensation for the death and Rs 20 lakh for the mental torture the bereaved family members underwent. The director of the institute, in reply to this demand said that money does not grow on trees. If a hospital has to pay such huge amounts for every death, the world will come to an end. It is a little concealed fact that the JACs get a huge cut out of such transactions. The activists tell the family members that it is because of the agitations spearheaded by them that compensation was paid.

When payments are denied, there are demonstrations and sit in protests demanding the dismissal of the doctors from service. They also demand the resignation of the head of the institutes on moral grounds when things do not move according to their convenience. The monetary demands are always made notwithstanding the fact that the families had signed the consent forms before the operations. But doctors can hardly speak out in view of the gun culture that is seen in the State.

A convenient charge is that the Government doctors are more concerned with the huge income they earn from the private hospitals. Since proper attention is not paid to the patients in the Government hospitals, there are avoidable deaths. Professor S. Sekharjit, director of the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences, Imphal which is under the Union Health Ministry says that he has been issuing office memorandums every now and then reminding the doctors that they cannot indulge in private practice since they are taking non - practising allowance at the rate of 25% of their salary.

The doctors feel insecure while the management knows that if there is adverse publicity business will be affected.

However, the bitter fact is that over 70% of the doctors from the Government hospitals in Manipur are found from morning to night in the mushrooming private hospitals and clinics. In the past some of them had been caught on camera while tendering apologies to bereaved family members. The most recent incident took place in a private hospital where one senior doctor from RIMS had operated on one youth who died within a day. Reacting to the growing demand for his punishment including his dismissal, he addressed a press conference in the private hospital to say that there was nothing wrong in the operation. The RIMS authority has served a show cause notice to this doctor.

It is not surprising that more and more doctors are avoiding treating or operating on serious patients since they know that they have to pay a heavy price in case there are deaths, notwithstanding the signing of the consent forms by the patients.

Kavita Laithangbam