As India runs a drive for vaccination against Covid-19, the nature reminds us about our diminutiveness by an accompanying surge in cases. In 2020, India had reported the highest number of 98,795 cases in 24 hours on September 17, but now the new unfortunate peak in April 2021 is past the two-lakh mark.
We pointed out even last year when the government was busy proclaiming its adept handling of the spread of disease, that government health infrastructure was inadequate while the private sector had just abdicated its responsibility. Covid patients had to suffer because of this and non-Covid patients had to suffer because they were not a priority even though they were facing life-threatening situations. Now the situation is even worse. The healthcare system has collapsed. Uttar Pradesh Law Minister Brajesh Pathak even wrote a scathing letter to the responsible bureaucrat about the abysmal response of healthcare system to Covid emergency. When an influential minister of the ruling party feels helpless, one can imagine the situation of ordinary mortals. In spite of the government policy of advising people home isolation in case they test positive, currently there is a scramble for beds. People are dying moving from one hospital to another, unable to find a bed.
The Prime Minister trumpeted a so-called Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, taking pride in the domestically produced Covishield vaccine based on Oxford-AstraZeneca research, only to give in to the demand to import Russian vaccine when push came to shove. The Bhartiya Janata Party governments seem to continuously function in an event management mode. Yogi Adityanath, who got himself accolades for his handling of the coronavirus crisis, has now himself tested Covid-positive, pointing to failure at three levels — the ineffectiveness of the much-touted vaccination programme, which has miserably failed to inoculate sufficient section of population, as he got himself inoculated days before; his ‘efficient’ healthcare system about which he once claimed that Kerala should learn from; and maintenance of general vigil and observing precautions against the disease.
It is believed that herd immunity kicks in only if two-thirds of a population is inoculated within a short duration of 8-10 months. However, in the case of India, we’ve hardly been able to vaccinate 1.2 crore of our population so far with both the doses, which is less than hundredth of what we need to do. And more importantly, the speed of vaccination is appalling — India’s drive began on January 16, 2021, and it took us three months to give both the doses to 1.2 crore. The time window is fast closing if we want to leverage public health benefits of herd immunity or save lives or reduce hospitalisations.
The government is woefully short of beds to accommodate all patients and is on a spree to acquire the capacity of private hospitals. We have always advocated for nationalisation of healthcare system. The logic for it cannot be understood any better than in times of Covid crisis. The UP government has ignored the Allahabad High Court’s 2018 order by Justice Sudhir Agarwal and Justice Ajeet Kumar that all those receiving salaries from the government and their family members should get themselves treated at government healthcare facilities. Implementation of this order alone will make the government healthcare robust. However, even in the time of pandemic, the government is guilty of promoting private interests. In the case of Covaxin, the other vaccine being used in India so far, important initial part of research was done by the National Institute of Virology, which is a part of the Indian Council of Medical Research, and handed over to Bharat Biotech for further development.
A pertinent question is, when the farmers are sitting on a protest for over three months demanding a legal right of minimum support price of their produce, which is one and half times their cost of production, why have the vaccine manufacturers been allowed to mint unethical profit in the time of a national calamity? It is important to remember that AstraZeneca/Oxford had promised not to earn any profit from the vaccine. Then why is its manufacturer selling vaccine to the government at variable prices? Covishield was bought by the government of India earlier at Rs 210 per dose, and recently it has been bought by our government at Rs 150. More interesting is that Covaxin, the vaccine which is entirely produced in India, costs even more to the government: Rs 295 per dose. The Covishield manufacturer wanted to sell it at Rs 1,000 per dose in private market but thankfully our government put a maximum cap of Rs 250 per dose. Let us not forget that the price of Covid test last year was so hard-negotiated at a maximum of Rs 4,500 which has come down significantly since then. The question is, who determines the cost price, and who should be held to account for minting profits even when people reel under severe economic and humanitarian crises?
That India needs a better healthcare infrastructure couldn’t have been more obvious earlier. We need more public hospitals to handle a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic. If the BJP cares about the people rather than the politics espoused by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, it should take a decision to divert major part of Rs 3,000 crore collected for building the Ram temple in Ayodhya for building hospitals. Even the existing religious infrastructure should be taken over by the government and converted into hospitals. If gurdwaras can serve human beings by running a very efficient langar system, why can’t other religious institutions get involved in human service, rather than restricting themselves to worship? In fact, government policy should make it mandatory for religious institutions to be involved with some form of human service in providing food, healthcare, education or undertaking some welfare activity.