Just days after BS Yediyurappa and Siddaramaiah, after testing positive for coronavirus, got admitted to a private hospital in Bengaluru, former Karnataka Assembly Speaker Ramesh Kumar, in an interview to TNM, berated their decision to not get treated at a government hospital. He also questioned the propriety of elected representatives who choose private hospitals for treatment.
“On one side, you want to make heavy investments in government hospitals, and on the other, you promote the growth of private hospitals. You are allowing government ministers, MLAs and others to get treated at private hospitals. And you even reimburse them. And this facility is not extended to a common man or a poor man. Don't you think this is just a farce?” questions the former Health Minister of Karnataka. Not just in Karnataka, across the country, politicians who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 have been admitted to private hospitals, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who is currently receiving treatment at Gurugram's Medanta Hospital.
“Why have government hospitals been denigrated to the present condition is the moot question. And we have consciously promoted the growth of private hospitals. A public health institution must have all the required adequate infrastructure and facilities to stand by a citizen,” Ramesh Kumar adds.
In 2017, as the Health Minister in the Siddaramaiah cabinet, Ramesh Kumar had moved a Bill to make amendments to the existing Karnataka Private Medical Establishments Act to bring private medical establishments under the government purview. After some clauses regarding the imprisonment of doctors were omitted from the Bill, in November 2019, a voice vote ensured the passage of the Bill on the floor of the Karnataka Assembly.
Amongst other things, the Karnataka Private Medical Establishments (Amendment) Bill, 2017, sought to regulate cost in private hospitals, have a patient's grievance redressal mechanism and ensure that elected representatives and government employees who are eligible for reimbursement of medical charges from the government get treated primarily in government hospitals.
“The law was amended and rules were framed in 2018. But they (the government) are not implementing it. Have you repealed the law or have you deliberately decided to ignore it? If the government ignores the law then who will implement it?" asks Ramesh Kumar.
“The law says that we (government servants) have to go to a government hospital first. If a particular treatment is not available there and the same is available in a private hospital then we should take an endorsement from the government hospital and then get treated at the private hospital. Only then the government can foot the bill. In case of an emergency, like a heart attack or a haemorrhage or an accident, there is a provision under law that they can go to the closest available hospital immediately, ensure the patient survives, and once the patient is stable, then he can come back to the government hospital. And only for that interim period, the government will make the payment of the private hospital.”
In 2014, Kannada actor and the then Housing Minister MH Ambareesh had received treatment at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore and the total expense for the same, Rs 1.14 crore, was borne by the state exchequer.
“The government servants and other legislators are mostly going to private hospitals and getting the reimbursements from the government. Then why did you bring in the law? I am only talking about the policy. We have been chosen by ordinary people. They have stood in a queue to vote for us. So it is our duty to stand by them because we are the representatives. And today, I want to ask who we really represent. I want to get treated in a private hospital but the man who stood in the queue to vote me to power has to go to a government hospital,” says Ramesh Kumar.
Ramesh Kumar ends by saying that elected representatives and bureaucrats have become intellectually corrupt. "What we preach to people, we do not intend to practice when it comes to us. From the Chief Secretary to the Governor, everybody is the same," he concludes.