Delhi leaders responsible for Dengue deaths
The 11 patients who lost their lives to dengue in recent days didn’t die because they were bit by a mosquito. They died because the people they elected to power did not care enough to put in place the necessary structures and facilities to prevent a dengue outbreak. Every year, before and after the monsoon season, there is a spike in the number of dengue cases, as stagnant waters and a humid atmosphere come together to provide the ideal breeding ground for the spread of the tropical disease. But dengue is easily manageable and curable — if only the public was made aware of basic sanitation measures that should be taken to prevent mosquitos from breeding and biting in the first place, and if the authorities had the proper healthcare systems in place to deal with the dengue cases, as and when they arrived. Instead, we now have a situation wherein almost a dozen innocent lives, including that of two boys as young as six and seven years old, have been lost; and the Government is just about waking up to this entirely avoidable crisis. In fact, it was only after six-year old Avinash Rout’s parents committed suicide, following the death of their child who was reportedly refused admission at five private hospitals, that the administrative system suddenly stirred to life. Special meetings have been held, emergency measures announced, ex-gratia benefits promised and more. However, those responsible for this mess are nowhere close to acknowledging their faults. A blame game has also begun, with the Aam Aadmi Party Government of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal pointing fingers at the Delhi municipal corporations which are run by the Bharatiya Janata Party. Such issues must be above petty politicking. Moreover, it seems like Mr Kejriwal and his team has conveniently forgotten that public health and sanitation is a subject on the State list — and, therefore, the direct responsibility of the State Government. What steps were taken by Mr Kejriwal’s administration to protect the public against the inevitable dengue outbreakIJ Why did the Government, which spent crores of rupees advertising its so-called achievements, not undertake a large-scale public awareness campaign against dengue. This is not to say that the corporations are not to be blamed — for example, all of them were allotted money for sanitation in general and fighting diseased like dengue and malaria in particular, not in many case less than half the funds made available were actually utilised. But the larger point is that this crisis is the result of all-round governance failure and all parties need to pull up their socks.
Once the state machinery gets its act together, the other players in this field who have not been abiding by the rules, such as private hospitals, will automatically fall in line. Reports that the latter have not been treating a certain percentage of poor patients even though they are legally obliged to do so, come as no surprise. This is a routine phenomenon across the country and irrespective of the crisis at hand. It is made worse by the crumbling infrastructure of most public health institutions and the acute paucity of quality healthcare overall. The Government can force some temporary relief measures but unless long-term capacity building measures are initiated, such crises will happen every year.