Central Hall – Misplaced Priorities?

The debate of late has begun to hover around, Legislative Council elections, shifting of International Financial Service Center (IFSC) or simply trolling each other on the social media. For a while, the debates have made us believe that we have contained the spread of Corona virus and hence we have ample amount of time to indulge in politicking. Never mind the ever increasing number of people turning Corona positive, for us politics reigns supreme.

The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously exposed the lacunae, the corruption, nepotism, out-dated medical infrastructure in our public health care system. Forget the poor, even the middle class with health insurance preferring public health care system rather than opt for the costly private health care system, which in many cases has already shut shop.

For a person like this reporter who spent almost close to 20 years of his formative years experiencing the public health care system from close quarters, despite the short-comings and constant rap and interference from the political executive, not to forget the encouragement of nepotism and corruption, hats off to the medical staff who despite the short-comings are at great risk to their personal safety, trying their best to contain the contagion.

Also Read: Central Hall – Dangerous Rumors!

A classic example of the political apathy is the shutting down of the cottage hospital at Unit No 16 inside the famous Aarey Milk Colony, a place which most people prefer to remember for the Metro 3 car shed and a place for their morning and evening walks. For many years now, the hospital is lying in a state of utter ruin and now only serves as a vaccination center for the new born.

The nearest health care facilities in the region are far away in places like Marol in Andheri, Jogeshwari, Malad and Borivali. By the time a snake bite or a scorpion bite case is brought to the nearest health care facility, the patient has less chances of survival. Now as the politicians are raising fingers over the public health care system, one just cannot help but feel aghast at their ability to plead ignorance.

Out of the 36 district’s in Maharashtra, 14 of them, that is almost half of the state is under Red Zone category when it comes to the spread of Corona virus. We have political games being played out over Legislative Council elections. Charges are being traded over the IFSC and Bullet Train.

Nobody has the time to spare to think about the economic collateral damage that the continued lockdown is going to have. The advice, caution from the government for people to stay indoors seem to be falling on deaf ears, for some people still trying to defy the dictates and hang around or loiter around aimlessly.

The lack of attention towards dealing with social and psychological impact that such man-made, natural or any other crisis and raising a support system to deal with it is hurting us. As the government begins to unlock the lockdown, the question remains is it ready to deal with its social, psychological fallouts? It is here where the Disaster Management has fallen woefully short. In China, they failed to take note of it and are now paying the price of witnessing a second wave of the pandemic.

As the pandemic has forced many US and other foreign countries to pull out their companies and investments out of China, our politicians here are more interested in settling scores over mob lynching, un-following on twitter, or letting the crooks of the hook. Globally many countries and states are positioning themselves to woo these multi-national companies (MNCs) to relocate their production facilities in their backyard.

For us it is more important to know who was responsible for taking the IFSC to the Mars or the Moon, rather than why the government has not been able to contain the spread of the virus even after more than a month. Nobody wants to question as to why our public health care system has been in such a bad shape for all these years.