Editorial: Government Healthcare Is In Shambles

When this newspaper brought to light that as many as 21 newborn babies had died in June in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at the government’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Hospital in Kalwa, in Thane district, the dean Dr Rakesh Barot defended the unfortunate episode. The numbers were not alarming because many of the infants were brought in a critical condition, he justified. The first part was downright insensitive of the feelings of parents who lost their babies; the second was the worst kind of whitewash or rationalisation there could be. This is unacceptable at every level — medical, ethical and political. Thane, it may be remembered, is the assembly constituency of chief minister Eknath Shinde, and his son Shrikant has just been elected to the Lok Sabha from here.

This is the second such incident in this very hospital in six months. As many as 18 patients had died in a span of about 24 hours in December last year. There were similar deaths in the government hospital in Nanded in October 2023 when 24 people — including 12 infants — died in 24 hours. Then, Shinde had termed the deaths “unfortunate” and promised that appropriate measures would be implemented to prevent recurrence. Evidently, these have not been put in place. The dean in Nanded had cited shortage of medicines and staff back then. Did the Kalwa hospital face the same issues? If so, what had been done to address them? Will Shinde tell the Maharashtra Assembly?

It must be mentioned that the national health policy recommends that at least 8% of a state budget is allocated to healthcare. The national average is 6.3%. However, Maharashtra, one of the richest states of India, falls below that; its allocation in budget 2023-24 was barely 4.6%. This deprioritisation of healthcare and the casual attitude is infuriating and insulting because these — and similar — deaths are clearly not episodic; these are systemic incidents in which public healthcare has not got the attention it deserves from the topmost echelons of the government. How many more deaths will it take for the government to prioritise healthcare?