A section of doctors in J&K behave as ‘holy entrepreneurs’ and capitalised on the Covid crisis to earn profits.
Sajjad Bazaz
Entrepreneurship is always an exciting business, especially in the best of times. But, it’s never without risks. The second year of the Covid-induced pandemic, was “the worst of times” that the countries across the globe collectively endured in recent memory. In the magnitude of crisis like the one we faced due to pandemic, most of the people avoid risk when we talk of entrepreneurship.
However, there is always a special breed of individuals/entrepreneurs for whom challenges owing to “the worst times” are exhilarating rather than fear-inducing. Such types of entrepreneurs respond to the crisis-induced changes by not digging, but pivoting their heels. They are always keen to turn crises around them into opportunities and flourish their entrepreneurship.
Among this special breed of entrepreneurs, we have a segment called ‘holy entrepreneurs’ who proved artistic in capitalising on the Covid crisis. The more the sufferings of common people, the more are their profits. The ‘holy entrepreneurship’ does not bear any risk and serves them without any loss. For this type of ‘entrepreneurship’ there is no concept of balance sheet, account auditing or ‘menace’ of filing any type of tax return – be it income tax or sales tax return. These ‘holy entrepreneurs’ don’t fall under the purview of the Goods & Services Tax (GST). Their earning is tax-free for being ‘holy’.
An unfortunate incident during Covid crisis is worth mentioning.A breed of ‘Covid warriors’ was actually performing as ‘holy entrepreneurs’. You won’t find any such reference similar to the incident anywhere in the world where medical professionals have used corona shields to garner business. However, there was an appropriate line for such ‘holy entrepreneurs’ – ‘Corona Exploitation Opportunists’ (CEOs) in an article published in The Times of Israel. Even as the author in the article described Israeli politicians in power as CEOs, here in J&K we found the line – ‘Corona Exploitation Opportunists’ – fitting to the section of the medical professionals who work as ‘holy entrepreneurs’.
Now, let me share the incident which I encountered at a private clinic of a ‘prominent’ senior doctor. During the ongoing second Covid wave, I received an SOS message from a close family member. His teenage son had contracted Covid-19 infection. Even as he had immediately started medication for his ‘Covid-positive’ son on the advice of a leading paediatrician living in his vicinity, he urged me to accompany him to a ‘relevant’ consultant to be on safer side. After some hectic efforts, we were successful to get an appointment, timed around noon, with the consultant, who had gained popularity as one of the Covid specialists. The very first sight of the consultant’s clinic (actually a residential house) was most disturbing. It was full of chaos and confusion. A huge number of Covid positive patients mingled with non Covid patients were desperately waiting for the call of the ‘expert’ doctor. The scene was horrifying as most of the patients were having acute cough and high fever and some patients were even on oxygen. We were asked to wait with a group of around 20 Covid positive patients who were there since 7 A.M. waiting for their turn. Most of the patients were in miserable condition with acute breathlessness. On enquiring, someone whispered ‘doctor sahib is in the meeting with some TV channels’.
It was shocking to see that the ‘Covid-specialist’ consultant, spending good time with media outlets all the time preaching Covid safety measures, was brazenly violating guidelines and Covid SOPs at his private clinic. Meanwhile, we were called for the consultation at around 7 P.M. It was again an unfortunate scene inside the consultant’s room. He was busy on a live TV panel discussion talking about Covid infection and stressing hard for observing SOPs to arrest the spread of the virus. It was only after a wait of 30 minutes, he attended us. It took him a few minutes to prescribe medicines. Even as we had got all relevant diagnostic tests done, he tried to force us to repeat the test at his ‘personal’ diagnostic lab established in the clinic. Notably, all patients, Covid positive or negative, were mandatorily subjected to a series of tests and imaging, costing, at least, Rs.5000 to Rs.8000 per patient. We asked for the possibility of telephonic consultation in case of an emergency. Even as he shared his WhatsApp number, he never answered our SOS messages.
Precisely, we could infer that this government employed consultant belongs to a section of medical professionals whoare into ‘holy entrepreneurship’ and perfectly matched the Israeli writer’s line: ‘Corona Exploitation Opportunist’.
We were not the lone persons at the clinic angered at the behavior of the so-called ‘Covid expert’. Others too were spitting venom, but Covid infection had left them hapless.
Basically, anger against doctors at our place is not a new phenomenon. The sacrosanct chord in doctor-patient relationship has weakened over a period of time, which has adversely impacted the performance of our human savings institutes.
Owing to the breed of ‘holy entrepreneurs’ the public is losing fast their trust in doctors. Today, there is a growing feeling among the people that their health concerns are not seriously taken care of despite paying treatment expenses through their nose.
Here I am reminded of an old proverb that “Doctor is the second God on this Earth”. For a patient, it’s the doctor who can rescue him from the clutches of death. This unflinching faith on doctors has never challenged their status as ‘second God’. We observe that a common man will fight for one or two rupee with a vegetable /fruit vendor but will never confront a doctor on treatment pricing. The reason is simple: For him this ‘second God’ is the only fervent hope to save him from getting consumed by a disease.
But do our ‘holy’ professionals (doctors) fit this adage?
Meanwhile, there is a need to take certain concrete steps to make this most important health infrastructure in terms of human resources, especially doctors accountable to the system. Covid-19 outbreak exposed some unhealthy practices of a breed of medical professionals especially those enjoying higher positions in the fraternity subjecting common patients to a lot of inconvenience. Making hay at the cost of pain and sufferings of patients is simply a criminal act, as they take undue advantage of the helplessness of such patients. It also needs to be noted that such a section of doctors very cleverly maintain very close liaison with ‘who is who’ in the government circles and simultaneously keep friendly liaison with media so that their misdeeds get unnoticed or overlooked by them.
There is a need to conduct surprise visits to clinics run by government doctors. The infrastructure in terms of diagnostic facilities created needs to be subjected to scrutiny.
