Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik quite emphatically said his Government’s priorities are education and health while addressing his Council of Ministers on the occasion of completion of two years of his fifth-term Government.
In fact, education and health, coupled with agriculture, have been utterly neglected in the State. The Covid-19 pandemic has unravelled how the health scenario is at sixes and sevens. The two waves of the Coronavirus have seriously affected the State with high infection and death rates.
There are serious shortages of beds, ambulances, doctors, nurses, medicines, ventilators and other medical equipments in hospitals, including the medical college hospitals (MCHs).
No doubt, the State Government has set up designated Covid Hospitals on a war footing, but they are a mere quick-fix. There is a glaring absence of a permanent robust heath system. During the first wave of the pandemic, the Government ran Covid Hospitals and quarantine centres from old Government buildings, including abandoned buildings of District Headquarters Hospitals (DHH), schools and colleges. Everyone knows how the hospitals and the quarantine centres were run with massive irregularities while the Government continued to sweep them under the carpet.
More pathetic was the decision to wind up the Covid Hospitals and quarantine centres as the infection rate dropped by end of last year. When the second wave struck, the Government was back at square one and started from the scratch. The private hospitals, where the Covid patients crowded in the first wave, exploited them like anything. With the Government delaying in capping the fees, the private hospitals found it the most opportune moment to mint money. They even did not let bodies to be taken for cremation if their bills were not paid fully. Lobby was needed for getting a bed and quality treatment and those who failed also failed to save their patients’ life. The situation has been rather worse during the second wave. Mass vaccination is a big question in the second wave and especially in view of a third wave waiting in the wings. But here also the Government cuts a sorry figure.
With the supply of vaccines from the Centre not matching the need of the State, very negligible percentage of population has been included in the programme so far.
The MoU with the Serum Institute for buying Covishield has not worked as the vaccine manufacturer has developed cold feet by not supplying the vaccine in time, while the global tender for buying vaccine from international market is likely to be a flop show with foreign companies reluctant to join the tender process and a few of them declaring to deal with the Central Government only. The grim health scenario of Odisha only points to a neglected health sector for long. During the last 22 years of rule of the Patnaik Government, there is still much to be done in the health sector to cope with a pandemic situation like Corona. In the last two years, the State Government has no doubt woken up to streamline the health sector, but by that time, the State has paid a heavy price in terms of loss of human life and sufferings owing to Covid. The CM said, “Massive investment of over Rs 8,500 crore in development of healthcare infrastructure across the State is under progress. The SCB Medical College Hospital will be developed as a great institution with an investment of Rs 3,500 crore. More than 786 doctors and 5,137 paramedics have been recruited in the last one year alone.” This shows how the State’s health system was completely ill-equipped till the pandemic broke out and the State Government burnt the midnight oil only when it was in grip of the health crisis. The stress on education sector is again an eyewash. Be it primary, secondary or higher education, the situation is alarming. When the underprivileged sections need to be encouraged to attend schools, the Government has a diabolical plan to close thousands of schools on the pretext of less student strength. Only the Orissa High Court’s intervention in the issue has put a halt to the exercise. The existing primary schools are not having the required number of teachers, while massive embezzlement of funds are going on through a nexus of officials, teachers, members of school managing committee (SMCs) and local leaders. Teachers are engaged in more of non-academic works than in teaching. Most importantly, rural schools are running through a peculiar situation where teachers are appointed under different confusing schemes and grant policies, leading to discriminatory scales of pay and service conditions. Thousands of teachers in various schools and colleges, especially in rural belt, have been left to fend for themselves without a regular job, by covering them under a Block Grant policy. While these teachers are taking a lion’s share of the education burden, ironically, the Government has ditched them by not fulfilling their legitimate demands for a long time. On the contrary, higher education is under the control of education mafia. The Government has been promoting them in various ways to unburden itself from the basic responsibility of pumping money to this sector which is rather unproductive in short term. Consequently, Odisha is fast moving towards commercialisation of education leading to depriving lakhs of students from poor and marginalized sections of quality education.
