The brutal attack on Director of Health Services Dr Sanjiv Dalvi in his own cabin by another doctor named Venkatesh has made headlines, but therein lies a bigger question which quietly went unanswered. What compelled this doctor to such an extreme step of launching a physical assault on the director, knowing well that his actions could even make it worse for him?
Dr Venkatesh, is contracted by the Directorate of Health Services to provide dialysis machines to patients in Canacona, a taluka deep south which has a long history of kidney ailments. It is here where over 50 per cent of the State’s renal failures are reported.
Holding back payments to the tune of Rs 72 lakh is definitely going to hurt anyone, leave alone Venkatesh. Mind you, we are not trying to justify his actions. The police have rightly arrested Venkatesh for his actions and have booked him accordingly for assaulting a public servant on duty. But we need to also focus on factors that could possibly force individuals to such rancor.
Venkatesh’s actions are purely out of frustration and despair. Against this background, we need to understand the motive behind keeping such huge bills nearing almost a crore kept pending. It could be quite a dilemma to cope up with systems that remain insensitive and unresponsive to individuals who invest a lot of time, resource and energy in doing a job which they are entrusted. Dr Dalvi in his capacity as Director of Health Services will have to answer why he held back payments and why issues, if any, could not be settled within a reasonable time frame.
Dalvi has a chequered history as Director of Health Services and 2017 saw him at the firing end of Health Minister Vishwajit Rane. In July last year he was served a show cause notice for short supply of medicines in Panaji Urban health centre, in what the health minister termed as insensitive attitude. The Health Minister had also banned him from going outside the State for the next three months till the Urban Health Centres and PHCs were functioning well. Dalvi was again put on notice for inefficiency over functioning of the North Goa District Hospital. In October last year, he was issued a show-cause for keeping various tenders at the GMC on hold for a very long time hampering functioning of departments.
In this attack case too, while Venkatesh is dealt in accordance with the law, the health minister should intervene and launch an inquiry into why Dalvi kept these bills amounting to Rs 72 on hold.
