PACHU MENON
As a beacon of pioneering medical works, the Goa Medical College and Hospital has achieved a name for itself. Setting benchmarks for other medical institutes to emulate, some of the medical feats performed in arguably one of the oldest medical colleges in Asia have indeed been rare!
But no matter how good they are, doctors and the other medical staff alone cannot make an institution ride the crest of popularity.
Although a place of excellence for the services rendered, GMC has however been in the news for all the wrong reasons - and almost always at that! A white elephant that has proved to be drain on the public exchequer, the maintenance of the sprawling premises has time and again come in for severe criticism.
It is only with the modernization and setting up of super-specialty units effected in the last few years that GMC has bounced back into reckoning with professionalism exemplifying every aspect of treatment offered.
Smitten by the ‘outsourcing’ bug we have the state’s health minister going all out to ensure that this module of business works wonders for the GMC.
Nevertheless, while there is no doubting the quality of medical treatment tendered, it has been the frequent administrative lapses which have eclipsed all the good work done.
It would be pertinent to make a note here that the thrust has all along been on improving the quality of medical treatment at GMC and overlooking the malaises that afflict the general administration.
It however comes as a big shock that while several diploma courses of various government and private medical colleges across the country have been upgraded to post-graduate degree courses by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, none from GMC figure in the list as the state administration failed to apply for it before the cut-off day.
By failing to give a quick and positive response to the offer from the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the GMC authorities gave another exhibition of their famous laidback attitude thus hampering the prospects of its own students. Moreover, with the Ministry for Health and Family Welfare showing its keenness to continue with only degree courses in medical colleges across the country, if the Medical Council of India decides to abolish the diploma courses, it would not only hurt the students but will also be a body-blow to the Goa Medical College.
The fact that a number of posts are lying vacant at GMC for want of qualified doctors is indicative of the oversight on the part of the authorities who never had contingency plans in place.
The apprehensions expressed by some that those passing out from GMC leave the state for greener pastures do appear a bit farfetched considering that it is well within the powers of the government to invoke the provisions of the bond signed by students to serve the state for a specific number of years.
As has been averred, “GMC authorities clearly lacked the perspective of creating qualified and specialized doctors to fill the vacancies.”
While managing the patients could well be left to the doctors, the authorities have a definite role to play in not only the day-to-day affairs of the hospital but also the bare essentials that facilitates the smoother functioning of the bureaucracy in place at GMC.
If media-reports have to startle the authorities out of inertness to react to the news about GMC losing out on upgradation of seats and hold meetings with the heads of departments before communicating with the Union Health Ministry on the matter, it implies that none of them qualify to occupy the high offices at the premier health institution.
Goa’s publicity-savvy health minister would have us believe that the shadow of his imposing presence evident in every facet of working at the GMC has changed things for the better. However, if the health minister has indeed been managing the affairs of GMC in a very resolute way, how did this monumental blunder come to happen!
The removal of the ex-dean from his post citing reasons of dereliction of duty is hardly any solution to the mess that the GMC finds itself in.
‘Heads rolling’ is a political corollary to any clumsiness that berates the functioning of a government department. Translating to mean a search for a scapegoat to pin the blame on, these methods have often served to reduce the impact of the allegations and gradually taking the mind of the people off the sordid drama.
Is the Dean the only loose joint in a system that refuses to get overhauled periodically! It is a collective failure! The complacent attitude of GMC authorities which affords them the luxury of overlooking the administrative backlogs is bound to bring about such embarrassing situations.
While keeping abreast of the latest developments at the centre pertaining to the ministry of health would have paid the GMC rich dividends, the bureaucracy as usual is to be blamed for attending to everything but the task it is entrusted with.
The administrative officials are wont to save their skins and will proffer a lot of excuses to justify the delay in responding to upgradation matter. Nevertheless, why should the medical students be paying the price for this insensitiveness exhibited by the GMC authorities!
Yet, all is not lost! The state government can make amends and gain what it lost owing to GMC authorities’ negligence. Although other options are open, it would be better to have the state’s Health Minister pursue the matter with the Medical Council of India in all earnestness and impress upon it to reverse its decision. May better sense prevail!
