JAMMU: Enter Out Patient Department of Government Medical College Hospital Jammu, a huge flex, minimum 5X10 feet, with larger than life size portrait of ‘Honourable’ Health Minister Ch Lal Singh will be mocking at you. Mocking; as poor tax payer’s hard earned money is getting down the drain due to sycophancy of some bigwigs of the Health and Medical Education Department. The Chamchagiri knows no bounds. Similar flexes are on display in Super-Specialty and other premier hospitals of Jammu. One wonders whether Kashmir hospitals also present a similar scenario.
‘Honourable Minister’ does not deserve to be blamed for such a public ‘ridicule’ because he knows that nobody is interested to see his beautiful face at public expense and at public places as a consequence of brazen misuse of official position by some overzealous sycophants in the J&K State AIDS Prevention and Control Society. However, he is expected to sack the unscrupulous elements, responsible for such an unbecoming act, as he is under oath to safeguard the public interest. He may afford to overlook the observations of being an ‘arrogant and boorish minister’ or in possession of illegal State land under his family trust, as per allegations made in a Public Interest Litigation in a Court, but he is certainly accountable for omissions and commissions in the departments under his charge because of being a responsible member of the BJP and an important minister of Mufti Sayed-led Coalition Government.
The whopping amount, spent on unspecific number of glowing flexes’ could have been productively utilized for specific purpose of generating awareness on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in a State, alarmingly infested by Human Immunodeficiency Virus or HIV. According to latest reports, 434 patients have died across the State from the deadly HIV while around 4,000 are living with AIDS. In Jammu, their number is more than in Kashmir, as around 2,649 patients were under treatment at the GMC at the close of last year. How AIDS patients or their relatives must be responding to the ‘beautiful’ face of their minister in a hospital where sufficient facilities for their treatment are not available?
If morality and accountability has any meaning in Jammu and Kashmir, the ‘Honourable Minister’ should be made to pay out of his own pocket the cost of these flexes as also the charges for the space where these are displayed at premium locations. Choudhry Lal Singh should remember that he is not in election mode or in his constituency where his posters will mean anything to his voters. The Chief Minister too should realise his responsibility as custodian of public exchequer and take such steps as may be appropriate to revive faith of people in the institutions, lest the civil society or activists are forced to seek legal recourse.
The current spell of the coalition dispensation has given birth to a class which is akin to Munna Bhai MBBS. If reports are to be believed, the nephrology patients in Super Specialty Hospital here had to brave a real tough time on the weekend as spouse of the ‘Honourable Minister’ took a round of the Unit to interact with patients. Escorted by the Medical Superintendent, nobody could explain in which capacity the Madam was taking stock of the facilities available in the Super Specialty. However, she was gracious enough to donate ‘Rs 2,000’ among seven patients belonging to her erstwhile constituency as MLA and now represented by the ‘Honourable Minister’. Since morning, the Hospital Management was eagerly preparing to receive the Choudhry Sahib, even though it entailed inconvenience to indoor patients as also those waiting for doctors in the out-door units. However, the ‘Honourable Minister’ got stuck somewhere and as a replacement Madam turned half past noon. After visiting Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery Unit, the Honourable Madam straightway barged into the Dialysis Unit where 15 patients were undergoing dialysis.
The escorting doctors were virtually crawling though they were only expected to bend. However, they have no remorse for causing health hazard to inpatients as such visits unfold Ache Din for them.