Under the Constitution of India, each citizen of this country has a right to live along with others enjoying equality in terms of justice - political, economic and social. No individual or a government has the right to take away the liberty of a human being living a peaceful life by causing fatal or temporary harm or injury knowingly or unwittingly at any cost.
Unfortunately the incidents that are unfolding in recent days and years in the state of Chhattisgarh are quite alarming and disheartening although the state was carved out of the former state of Madhya Pradesh for the exclusive development of tribals and other underprivileged sections of society. The lives of tribals and Dalits are at the mercy of the agents of state government, deprived of decent living and rather disabled permanently or done to death carelessly - all for the filling of some pockets in the hierarchy as also establishing oneupmanship in registering some half-made results.
A thick-wooded forest coverage in the state has unfortunately become a bane for the local tribals. In the last ten years or so as many as 5000 tribals have been killed by the Maoists/Naxalites or para military forces. If violence is threatening to uproot the lives of hapless tribals on the one hand due to the Naxalites and the very living disturbed by the multinationals in the name of industrial development, on the other hand the Department of Health, expected to ensure healthy life otherwise, has resorted to physically harm them or end their lives ruthlessly. So called welfare state has turned out to be an intolerable hell.
At a camp held at Bagbahara, 100 KM from Raipur, 12 poor people from the rural areas lost their vision after they had undergone cataract surgeries on December 9 and 10, 2010. In his reply to a demand for CBI inquiry, the Health Minister Mr. Amar Agrawal admitted in the state assembly on December 22 that as many as 44 people were blinded after being operated upon at an eye camp organised by the state government at Balod in Durg district between Sep 22- Sep 30 in 2011.
Again in July 2012 the matter of illegally-removed ovaries of the poor women violating standard treatment guidelines came to light. It is reported that up to 2,000 people were convinced into having their wombs removed in last few months as admitted by Mr. Amar Agarwal: " The women were deliberately ill-advised by doctors who removed their uterus to get money,"
In the latest man-made tragedy nearly 17 women are stated to have died after tubectomy operations conducted on them at a mass sterilisation camp organised in village Pendari near Bilaspur, the District HQrs, in Chhattisgarh state. One more death of a tribal woman from Baiga community, a restricted one constitutionally, has been reported from the Community Health Centre, Gaurella. It is reported that as many as 83 operations were made in three and a half hours on Saturday, November 8, 2014 violating all medical norms and set guidelines, probably to catch up with the target fixed for the year by the higher ups.
About 17 more women are reported to be on ventilator being serious out of 139 women admitted in few hospitals for treatment due to these camps. A number of small kids and school going children have become motherless all of a sudden for no fault of theirs. A heart-rending scene should be seen to be believed for realising the type of disaster that the rural poor families have been subjected to. Human negligence supplemented by the greedy nature of some individuals in our society has led to such a catastrophe. A drastic action like life imprisonment or capital punishment alone can set right things.
No doubt the state government has risen to the occasion of late and taken the following measures:
Appointment of a retired district judge as one person judicial enquiry into the incident.
Dismissal of two doctors who did the operations in the camps.
Arrest of the manufacturers of spurious drugs.
Shifting of the Director and regional joint director and suspension of an assistant drug inspector.
Distribution of compensation of Rs Four lakh of rupees to the families each of the deceased women due to botched sterilisation.
Adoption of those children up to the age of 18 for education and free medical treatment at Apollo Hospital and depositing a sum of Rs 2.00 lakh in the name of each child.
However the general public is not satisfied with these announcements but keep agitating all over the state including Raipur and Bilaspur cities daily and seeking the dismissal of the Health Minister.
