In an alarming state of affairs, 59 children were injected an antibiotic, all with a single syringe and needle on March 1 at Niloufer Hospital in Hyderabad. In this day and age, where even the common man knows to buy a disposable syringe for medical use to avoid risk of infections like Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV, it is appalling that an allegedly trained medical staff member would subject innocent children to such criminal negligence.
As the news broke on the morning of March 2, Niloufer Hospital witnessed chaotic scenes as irate parents staged protests. An immediate probe revealed that a staff nurse, identified as Prameela, who was on night shift at the hospital the previous day, injected ‘Monocef’ antibiotic to treat infections, following prescription by doctors attending on the children, aged mostly between three months and four years. These children were suffering from various illnesses, including pneumonia, respiratory infections, diarrhoea, and viral fever, among other infections, for which they were being examined.
Parents and relatives protested after they noticed rashes on the skin and swelling on the arms of children soon after they were given the injection. “My 11-month-old daughter was continuously crying after she was administered the injection. When I questioned the nurse why she was using a common syringe and needle for all, she brushed aside my objections,” said P Ramakrishna, a resident of Mahbubnagar, to TOI.
What is worse is that medical experts have stated that injection of antibiotic via syringe, especially to babies, is extremely wrong. The ideal way would be to administer it using a saline drip mode over a time span of 15-20 minutes. Otherwise, it would result in irritation and unbearable pain in any case, they say.
This episode is typical of the poor state of healthcare across many public healthcare clinics and hospitals, with rural and remote areas faring far worse. It is also significant because we all recently sat through a budget session where the new BJP government earmarked a paltry Rs.33,152 crore to the health sector. When it comes to allocation for the healthcare sector, governments in India have always been stingy. Arun Jaitley’s 2015-16 budget shows that the Modi government is no different.
Indians, today, have the highest healthcare expenditure per household primarily because the state-run hospitals are poorly manned, with over-crowding of patients, under-staffing and a myriad of other infrastructural and administrative problems. The chances that the syringe episode would happen in a private hospital are far less likely. Even in states where the government has provided additional sops for free food security (efficient PDS system), free education, books, uniforms, added income from MNREGS, there are still many families under debt because of huge medical expenses. Even the poor prefer going to private hospitals, unless they have no other choice, if only to avail better healthcare.
It comes as a shock to consider that allocation for healthcare is only a miniscule 1.86 per cent of the total budget, which is also the second lowest in the last 10 years. The lowest was last year, 2012-13, when the allocation stood at Rs.25,539 crore, which was just 1.81 per cent of the total expenditure that year.
The condition of public healthcare in the country is possibly a far more critical and burning issue which requires higher budgetary allocation, than say, a flagship program like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, which got a surprising Rs.1,34,000 crore earmarked by the government. The healthcare sector may not be an assured income return like infrastructure projects, but it’s an assured voter returns, because everybody would be grateful for good healthcare. This alone should be incentive enough for the government to focus on it. If not, then it is high time that a law is passed making it mandatory for the government to allocate a specific minimum percentage of funds towards healthcare each year. Never mind your election-related plans for us, Mr. Jaitley, we want quality healthcare first.
Image courtesy: BCCL
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