CHAPTER XXII HOVEL OF THE BIHAR* STATE HEALTH SERVICES

Chapter XXII

Hovel of the Bihar* State Health Services

           

            I had an ambition to become a professor of Medicine not just to earn but also to be a good teacher and the prime motive of leaving the CCL, Ranchi was this. But after joining the Bihar* State Health Service, I felt like, ‘falling from the wooden-apple to the thorns of Acacia.’

            The Bihar* Public Service Commission had asked for applications in 1985. It could hold the written examination in 1986 and interview in 1987 and finally we joined it in 1988. Amongst nearly 2000 selected candidates my rank was 110th, not bad after six years of passing my clinical subjects. A substantial part of my interview for the BPSC drifted around Ayurved due to the word vk;qfoZKku (Aayurvigyan) printed on the files of the NMO’s Patna conference of 1982, I was having with me which had jk"Vªh; vk;qfoZKku Nk= laxBu (Rashtriya Aayurvigyan Chhatra Sangathan) printed in bold letters.

            I was told that if I did not make approach, I would be posted in tribal area of Bihar*, but the computerised posting allotted Munger district to me. The C.S. office demanded Rs. 30 as medical examination fee or bribe, I do not know but probably it was the latter since my other friends posted in other districts did not have to pay it nor we were issued any receipt for it. The posting was a matter of choice, money and pairavi. I did not make any effort and was sent to an Additional PHC, Gangta More, near Haveli Khargapur, previously a dispensary, meant for an MBBS though I was also MD and DCH.

            I went to join there incidentally on the auspicious Nav Samvatsar Day, on 18th March. The PHC-in-charge never resided there. I became in-charge after joining and when I reached there, I had to go in the fields for defecation. There was no electricity and no potable drinking water not to talk of a quarter! Even then I was told that I was fortunate, “You are at least on the roadside!”

*Including Jharkhand

  

            I could know my fortune very soon. Being on the roadside, the Commissioner* of the Bhagalpur Division and the DIG on their way to Sikandara regarding some disturbances, found it convenient to inspect the dispensary in order to be in the good books of a Minister of the Bihar** State, whose father had donated that barren land for the dispensary on the outskirt of the village. It was a common practice that the employees were remaining absent without taking leave, maybe due to lack of basic infrastructure where one could live and work properly.  I had also suffered from spinal radiculitis due to trauma from sudden jerks while taking out water from hand pump for taking bath at the RMC Hostel No. 5 while water supply was irregular. The ‘compounder’ had told about it to the Civil Surgeon when she visited the  place later but she also thought it better to report my absence to the Secretariat.

             The ‘compounder’ told me that the dresser had reported my long absence when he knew that though titled ‘Thakur’, I was not from a Backward Caste but the dresser told me that seeing the officers with gun-men around, he got frightened and therefore he had said so.

            On receiving this information I went to the Secretariat at Patna. I also thought to receive my pay-slip from there. Admission in any building of the Secretariat was possible only by paying a two-rupee note to the guard; the official procedure would allow you a pass for the afternoon when no one on the table would be available. And it needed a hundred rupee note if you wanted your pay-slip ready, before the evening train/bus and then too the final dispatch clerk would need

Rs. 10 further.

            When I enquired about the complaints against me, people told me that it was not a matter to worry about. Yet, I was worried. I went to the said Minister’s house. His PA did not allow me to talk to him but his servant told me, “You, cannot stay in that dispensary.” The servant was poor but an honest fellow.

            I went to meet the MLA of my town, Saryu Mishra, though I was apprehensive whether he would help me, as I had not agreed to marry his niece a few years earlier. One young man told me that I was trying to meet that MLA, an ex-Health Minister, uselessly, and it was advisable to go to the other MLA who was closely related to the Health Minister.

* Who was later an  accussed of the 'fodder scam'

**Including Jharkhand

                         Worshipping a setting sun can be practice of a fool only. In the scorching sun, I went to that MLA, as advised. A teacher of mine at Darbhanga who met me on the way also suggested a few things to me. That MLA knew my father and my brother and on his advice I wrote a letter to the Health Director who had been in the hospital of my home-town. Next morning, it was difficult to see the Director, though I could enter into the Secretariat. Fortunately, the same MLA met me and took me to the Director. He was an MLA from the ruling party, an ex-Minister and also a relative of the Director. The Director referred to the Deputy Director for presenting my application in a file. I noted down the reference number of the memo.

            Then I came to the concerned section. Many old friends, and seniors and juniors were wandering in the corridors and almost all of them exclaimed on seeing me there Dr. Umesh (son of Dr. Barmeshwar Prasad, Ranchi who was famous for never visiting the Secretariat in his service span) told me with a sigh, “Sir, too here!” I could not tell them that I wanted to be a professor of Medicine in my retiring days.

            Anyway, I could reach the concerned clerk. My two seniors who were residents at the DMCH were standing near him and prompting another doctor to say freely what he liked. The clerk said, “If you come regularly you will not be liable to pay anything and if you cannot, then pay Rs.100 a week.” The poor fellow agreed for Rs.50. He was further told to come along with him downstairs, may be to the canteen where those cheap talks were usually done to finalise the deal over the subsidised sweets and tea. But the clerk said that there was nothing to grumble about. The senior residents were saying, “Yes, tell frankly whatever you want.” By this time, I was finding the goings on pathetic and without asking anything further I came out with a determination that I would not go there again.

            I returned to Ranchi. My well-wishers insisted that I must not leave the service, and so must take salary also, about one fourth of which I had to give to the staff, including the CS, Munger, who had demanded Rs.350 per month if I could not be present on my duty regularly. Monkey-chipped salary, I received and without using a penny for myself, I gave it to my father for the dowry of my sister. Since my wife also told me that dowry was a social crime so it could be used like that though I was planning to donate this money for some social work but I could not do so.

  

            I expressed my agony to my wife. She suggested to me that if I was unable to work honestly, I should leave the service and start practice. Not only I, my friend Dr. Shanti Prakash also appreciated her stand — working in that hovel and that too honestly, was impossible.

            Though I applied for transfer to Chhotanagpur, my application was not even forwarded. Later on a ‘love-letter’ came from the Secretariat. I replied on the above lines as the cause of my prolonged absence. I know it was foolish from the management angle but the father of a medico; a retired very senior officer of the Bihar Govt. appreciated my straightforwardness.

            I know, I had not been truthful in that hovel but I had spent few nights in the dribbling rainwater through the damaged roof of the ward. There was no drinking water even as per the reports of that Commissioner (with whom later, I shared dais in the V National Conference of the NMO at Bhagalpur).

            There the old ‘compounder’ Binod Thakur remarked that even if I did not stay there, people honored me as I had not sold drugs nor misbehaved with any ANM/nurse.

            One can wonder why I did not resign properly. If it took years in a company like the CCL, Ranchi you could imagine the fate of an application in that grand hovel which needed a ‘paper-weight’ (I  mean Indian currency in paper) for any application to remain on any table and its further movement was only possible by money or pairavi by an MLA or an IAS or a Minister.

Fund for health manipulated

Patna: Bihar’s director of health services, Akhouri Ramesh Chandra Sinha has alleged that central funds, amounting to Rs.12, 552 crore, appear to have been misappropriated or defalcated between the Fifth and the Eighth five-year plans under the National Rural Health Service Scheme. The scheme included construction of health sub-centres, primary health centres, additional PHCs and referral hospitals and purchase of instruments.

                In a 16-page note sent to the Health Commissioner last month, Sinha said that while Rs. 6,302 crore was misappropriated in the name of rural health infrastructure, Rs 6,250 crore was spent on wasteful wages. He had sent a letter to the then chief secretary, V.S. Dubey, last August in this regard. He said all the appointments made under various national health programmes, including family planning programme, TB control, leprosy eradication, cholera, small pox, malaria control and Buniyadi health workers scheme, after 1975-76 were illegal.

                Incidentally, the heath authorities have remained silent on both the letters. Dubey had sent back Sinha’s letter to the health department itself. (Courtesy, The TOI, 16.06.2001)