'Are patients made to buy equipment in govt hospitals?' Veena George stages masterclass in evasion

The question to Health Minister Veena George in the Assembly on Tuesday was very specific. "Has it come to your notice that patients visiting government hospitals, including members of KASP (Karunya Arogya Suraksha Padhathi), are forced to dip into their own pockets to purchase medical equipment?" 

The poser was jointly made by Congress MLAs A P Anil Kumar, I C Balakrishnan, Saneeshkumar Joseph and C R Mahesh. The answer, a gem in obfuscation, was neither an 'yes' or a 'no'. 

"Free treatment is given to patients in all government hospitals as per the guidelines under various free healthcare schemes including KASP. It is stipulated that hospital superintendents, adhering to procedures, should provide these patients with necessary treatments, medicines, implants and medical equipment. Therefore, there should not be a situation where such a patient has to shell out money from her pocket to purchase equipment," she said.

The minister was asked about the ground reality and she merely stated the rule. But in the next sentence, she indirectly suggests that patients could have been asked to buy equipment.

George said that the expert committee formed after Dr Haris Chirakal, the head of the Urology Department of Thiruvananthapuram Medical College, complained of delayed procurement had "made a mention" of patients being asked to buy flexiscope (a machine to grind kidney stone). 

She then quotes the expert committee report to say that it was against government rules to buy the equipment with money from patients who are part of free healthcare schemes. She said the expert committee also said that such a practice should be discouraged and if at all such an exigency arose, then the Medical College authorities should be compulsorily informed.

This was an already accepted rule and still the minister sought to shoot from behind the cover of the expert committee. The minister refused to confirm whether patients were made to purchase surgical equipment.

So Anil Kumar got up and rephrased the question. He started off reminding the House of Dr Haris's remark that the situation was so pathetic that patients were asked for money to buy surgical equipment. "We also hear that there is equipment shortage in various cardiology departments in government hospitals, too. It is also said that there is shortage of even X-ray film. What steps have the government taken to make available such basic equipment for poor and ordinary patients," he asked. 

"I have already made this clear," the minister began, and then slipped into comparison mode. She gave comparative figures for the money spent on equipment purchase during the UDF and the LDF tenures. During the UDF tenure, between 2011 to 2016, Rs 15.65 crore was spent on equipment purchase for Thiruvananthapuram Medical College. During the first Pinarayi Ministry, it was Rs 41.85 crore. In the four years of the second Pinarayi Ministry, it is Rs 80.66 crore. She also said that it were in government medical colleges (Thiruvananthapuram, Kottayam and Kozhikode) that the most number of cardiological interventions take pace. Further, she said that the number of people seeking free treatment had gone up by 160 per cent from 2021 to 2024.

Still, the fundamental question remained unanswered. Is money demanded from patients to buy surgical equipment?

Apparently frustrated, the leader of the opposition got up. "It is a very important question that has come before the House," Satheesan said. "It is about the sorry state of the health system that forces even the poorest of the poor to shell out money from their pocket to buy surgical equipment. Even heads of departments in medical colleges have complained about this.

In Alappuzha Medical College, a patient was asked to buy even the cotton required for the surgery. When the health minster is asked this question, she is speaking about figures that are 10 years old. If so, why not start from the time of EMS? Was our question about figures that existed 10 years ago," he said.

"Why are you getting so provoked," was the minister's response to the Opposition Leader. "I have placed data before this House," she said and challenged the opposition leader to a debate.