2019
1. This year’s Republic day honor list includes many doctors who are not based in and around metro cities. This is a welcome change.
2. It includes Dr & Mrs Kolhe from Maharashtra. Their work to get affordable healthcare to tribal areas of Maharashtra is well documented. Their honor with Padmashree is well deserved and a joy to all who are interested in healthcare for all.
3. Every state of India has doctors who work selflessly in remote areas where no doctors are available. These doctors give away all comforts of civilized life and spend it in service of under served communities.
4. In Maharashtra, we have Amte Family (3 generations), Bang family (2 generations), Bawiskar family and Kolhe family devoted to this work.
5. All of them have also worked to improve access to drinking water, roads, schools and healthcare.
6. They have risen above and beyond call of duty to work in area of governance as it is a primary support of health and healthcare.
7. after 3 generations in same geographical area, things haven’t fundamentally changed.
8. Utter failure of governance in these areas is the real reason why individual families have to make ultimate sacrifice in service of poor.
9. Elected representatives who get homes in metros, lifelong free healthcare and pensions never feel the pain.
10. Elected representatives are happy to point fingers at doctors for not choosing these areas to “serve”. Almost all of them have homes in cities and children in urban, expensive schools.
11. It is inconceivable that a highly educated doctor will take her/his family to remote area where even drinking water is not available and everyone around is looking for a way to migrate to cities for better life.
12. While my head is raised high due to selfless achievements of Dr Kolhe couple. It hangs in shame because their work is needed 70 years post independence.
13. Every Padmashree, Padmabhushan, Padmavibhushan and Bharatratna bestowed upon a doctor for “selfless” service is a reminder that individuals are trying to fill the void where successive governments have failed again and again.
14. I honestly wish that rural development and economic development reaches a level where doctors will be honored for their innovative work in treatments and services and not for sacrificing their life due to failure of governance.
Each honor is a glory of individual but a mark of our collective failure.
#JaiHind