Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 02 July 2018 | Page 19

Karnataka
casualty, the staff is ready with wheelchairs.
“It’s always crowded because people come from all over. This
is the only hospital with scanning facilities,” says Amarnath,
an autorickshaw driver, here to sign up for his health card.
Veni from Kolar Gold Fields, 30 km away, is here for the
first time: her newborn grandchild was referred here for an
infection. She’s happy with the care.
Being a singular refuge for a population of millions around
makes for a near-intolerable degree of pressure. SNR shares this
fate with all the other hospitals Outlook scanned across India:
having to be like a version of Atlas, holding up the earth. That
itself creates problems, many of them chronic.
Severe staff shortage, for one. SNR has three vacant posts for
by Ajay Sukumaran in Kolar
general surgeons. A lone specialist surgeon handles all patients
now. “We’ve been asking for posts to be filled up,” says district
rush confronts us at Kolar’s Sri Narasimharaja (SNR)
surgeon Santosh Prabha. “Trouble is, not many want to work
District Hospital, but that’s not unusual. Health cards
here because of the high work load.” India’s public healthcare is
for the state’s universal health coverage scheme, Arogya
like this almost anywhere—a constant run on the only bank in
Karnataka, are being distributed. Besides, patients always
the province, and not enough cash.
stream in here from remote talukas. After infant deaths in
Under the circumstances, SNR passes muster. “It was
Gorakhpur’s BRD Medical College, the public glare had fallen
coincidental that three children died the same day last August.
on SNR, following reports that many newborn babies had died
That’s what triggered the public attention—there was no
there. An apt place to revisit, then, for Outlook’s national
clustering of cases,” says paediatrician B.C. Balasunder, adding
survey of the state of children’s healthcare.
that all three babies had “complications”. Not atypical. Deaths
What had happened here in August 2017? But first, what does
are not just a sign of crisis. In India, they are also ro