Bouquets and brickbats for CM’s free-hospital move

SNS, Siliguri, 23 October 2014: Hundreds of people have appreciated chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s decision to make treatment of poor patients in government hospitals totally free of cost.

A section of people, active online, however, also strongly criticised her decision.

“All patients will receive free treatment, free diagnostics and free surgery in all government hospitals and health centres from village to the district level,” Miss Banerjee yesterday wrote on her Facebook wall.

“There are around 70 lakh people in districts who depend on government hospitals and cannot afford to pay for the beds,” she added.

While Somnath Bhattacharya, a netizen, welcomed the decision and said: “Health and education must be free in a country.”

Another Manab Pal said: “This is a very bad decision and only people belonging to the BPL (below poverty line) should get the opportunity.”

However, Rajat Roy’s take was different. “First accelerate growth in the state, the government will then have more money to spend on the poor,” he said.

Another, Jiten Tripura said: “The government will go bankrupt (with this decision).”

Reacting to the decision, Robson Jani, Md Yusuf Ali Khan, Hanif Khan and Abu Rajhan said: “It’s a brilliant idea to fill the hospitals with cats and dogs (meaning common people). Even you can’t find a cat or dog inside a hospital. Patients will be half dead thanks to the behaviour of the nurses and doctors. They are so hostile, so rude and heartless.”

“It’s a new gimmick. The state will spend a huge amount of money unnecessarily. Dear CM, finally will genuine beneficiaries get the opportunities?” Debmalya Dutta said.

Sanjoy Ganguly said: “Kindly notice the cleanliness of government hospitals, the conditions are worse due to staff crunch.”

“Your decision is definitely commendable in the interest of the poor people in the rural belt, but a strict and regular vigilance is required to see that people are being really served,” said Satyanarayan Gupta.

“It is a fantastic effort, but didi (CM), make a separate window for people who want to pay and get an early response,” said Soumya Basak.

However, commenting on the post, Adinpannya Bhaskar Bhattacharya explained the character of Muhammad bin Tughluq, the Sultan of Delhi from 1324 to 1351, and who is also called a man of ideas and the ‘wisest fool,’ and said: “Good thinking, but systems for implementations are full of flaws like bin Tughluq’s.”

Notably, over 10,000 people had ‘liked’ the chief minister’s post till 6 pm today and 785 persons had shared it. Over 1,900 people had commented on the post so far.

Hundreds of people have said “nice didi,” “thanks didi,” “an outstanding step” and a “great job in the health sector,” and a flood of other praises like “a decision for maa mati and manush.”

One of them, Ayan Mukherjee, said: “My father is now admitted in a state-run hospital… I bought medicines from the fair price shop at 66 per cent discount … which is great, and now this will surely help people who are financially down like me.”

One Arun Chakraborty suggested: “Bring some bills to monitor and stop private hospitals and nursing homes from extracting money from patients.”