Health Minister arrested

Just over two months since the Aam Aadmi Party government took charge in Punjab, the state’s Health Minister, Vijay Singla, has been sacked by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on the charge of corruption. Even though the details of the charge are yet to be fully investigated, the sacking and immediate arrest of Singla send out a strong message that the party leadership would not put up with corruption even in the Cabinet. The matter also underlines the urgent necessity for good leadership and decision-making in the health department, possibly the most vital, crucial interface between the public and the government. A strong public healthcare system is considered obligatory in a progressive democracy, but India’s public healthcare is crumbling, bursting at the seams with patients but also facing an acute shortage of health workers.

The situation is particularly fraught in rural India — according to the Rural Health Statistics report for 2019-20, released last month, rural India is facing a severe shortage of specialist doctors, with a 78.9% shortfall of surgeons, 69.7% of obstetricians and gynaecologists, 78.2% of physicians, and 78.2% of paediatricians. India needs around 22,000 specialist doctors for 5,000-plus community health centres, but there are only 13,637 sanctioned posts against this number — and 9,268 of them are vacant. There is a yawning gulf between requirement and availability, compounding the misery of patients and their caregivers already dealing with the trauma of illness in the family.

The situation in Punjab is dire — and despite the seriousness of the matter, even comical. As reported in these pages on Tuesday, despite 800 posts of doctor lying vacant, around 50 senior doctors including specialists are engaged in administrative work. Singla, before he got exposed, had ordered all senior doctors to perform clinical duty for at least three hours a day. Some specialists are attached with bureaucrats and politicians, and at least 33 of them are cooling their heels in the Directorate of Health. This is as unpardonable as Singla’s bribery scandal since a majority of the population, especially in the villages, is left at the mercy of private practitioners, or is forced to travel to the cities for specialist treatment. 

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