For the last couple of days, the recently defamed hospital named after eminent doctor Radha Gobinda Kar (RG Kar Medical College and Hospital) has become the centre point of media coverage. Probably in the meantime, most of us have been familiar with this hospital. It is needless to say that the vicious circle of corruption, conspiracy and crime around this hospital is only the tip of the iceberg. The iceberg is the wide-spread organised crime underlying the health sector.
A vivid recall of multi-faceted personality like Radha Gobinda Kar and the forgotten history of this hospital would throw some light on the fact that how with the passage of time the then environment, sympathy, compassion and all other ethical values evident in health care have been eroded and todays’ would be doctors either willfully or reluctantly have been befitting themselves with the changing scenarios and many of them have been the part and parcel of this demonic vicious circle.
Acting for a Noble Cause
In response to an appeal by an eminent English eye specialist Charles Macnamara to raise funds for the foundation of an eye hospital, National Theatre staged the sensational drama Neel Darpan written by Deenabandhu Mitra in the Town Hall. Radha Gobinda took part in this play as an actor. Radha Gobinda also wrote a satire play titled Mr Neller’s Dispensary highlighting the then corruption prevailing in the pharma sector. At that time, one of the corruption of such dispensaries was to sell medicine in the name of wine.
A Gifted Gymnast
Radha Gobinda was influenced by a foreign gymnastics show in Shobhabazar Palace on the occasion of Durga Puja. Then he set up a gymnasium within his ancestral house. A concert team was also formed for the musical purpose of gymnastics.
Some of those musicians joined the National Theatre. In this connection, he came into contact with eminent dramatists like Girish Ghosh and others. So the culture of exercise, music and theatre became part of Radha Gobinda’s life. And behind all these there was his father’s indulgence and facile, compact relationship with son. His father was his friend, philosopher and guide. At that time this sort of father-son relationship was rare. This reminds us of the relationship between Shwetaketu and Aaruni.
Medical Books in Bengali
To meet the growing demand for doctors, especially for the treatment of Army personnel and company servants, company’s policy makers decided to recruit teachers, even senior students, to teach medical students as far as possible in Hindi and Bengali. Radha Gobinda’s father Durga Prasad was such a teacher, who later on wrote a book on medicine in Bengali titled Bheshaja Ratnavalee. Demand for this book among Bengali medical students brought financial solvency to Durga Prasad.
Radha Gobinda followed his father’s footprints. He also wrote and published a few medical books in Bengali. He realised that to promote modern medical science among medical students as well as common people, scientific theories should be correlated with our country’s nature, environment, socio-cultural features and history. His books show glimpses of New Medical College.
The concept of joint responsibility of the State or the Government and Civic Society in the health sector was evident in Radha Gobinda’s memorable creation “Calcutta School of Medicine” which he established in 1886 with some of his associates. All the official works of this school were done in Bengali. Later on, this school became known as Carmichael Medical College. In the year 1948, the West Bengal Government undertook this college and it was named after doctor Radha Gobinda as RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.
In 1929 after the demise of Radha Gobinda (1919), in one of his memorial meetings, only three of his associates were present. Probably indication of the changing scenario was being evident through this rapid oblivion.
In the decades of 1920 -30 the change that made medical practitioners concerned were several unethical and illegal activities due to excessive commercialisation.
Just imagine it! The main theme of two dramas titled Mayapuri and Nursing Home was alike, where the later showed direct connection between this decadence and private nursing home. Similarly, content of the novel
Agnishwar written by eminent poet Balai Chand Mukherjee was also the same, that is the mentality of serving people is being lost because of excessive commercialisation.
There is no contradiction between business and science. Radha Gobinda also earned a lot of money by writing Bengali medical books. But he never deviated himelf from the duties and responsibilities as a medical practitioner. He was a very popular doctor and patients always sang his praises.
Medical Crime Since RG’s Era
When in Bharat these sorts of dramas were highlighting medical crime and corruption, parallelly in the West, white collar crime was propounded for the first time by Edwin H Southerland in 1939. He defined it as, “As a crime committed by a person of the upper socio-economic class who violates the criminal law in the course of his occupational, professional activities.”
Needless to say that occupational, professional activities include the medical profession also. What a co-incidence indeed! So petty sale of wine in the name of medicine took the shape of organised crime in the 20th century and now it covers a wide range of ghoulish malices such as Business of Deadly Diseases (Diabetes, AIDS and others) and Organ Trading.
Many well-researched books have exposed this horror elaborately. We may refer to such a book, that is Deadly Medicine and Organised Crime: How Big Pharma has Corrupted Health cCre, recently written by Peter Gotzsche, head of the Nordic Cochrane Centre. In his book, Peter produces evidence to support his case that pharma companies are guilty of most of those offences that are defined in the US law as organised crime. In his book, he quotes the former Vice President of Pfizer i.e. “It is scary how many similarities there are between this industry and the mob. The mob makes obscene amounts of money as does this industry. The side effects of organised crimes are killing and deaths and the side effects are the same in this industry. The mob bribes politicians and so does the drug industry.”
The book shows how the industry has bought doctors, academics, journals, professionals and patient organisations, University departments, journalists, regulators and politicians.
The book also argues that drug companies are doing what is expected of them in maximising financial return for shareholders but doctors and academics are supposed to have a higher calling. Laws that require companies to declare payments to doctors are showing that very high proportions of doctors are beholden to the drug industry and that they may have been getting payment of six figures sum for advising companies. They are the “hired guns” of the industry. Peter tells several stories of whistleblowers being hounded and John le Carre’s novel titled The Constant Gardener describing drug company ruthlessness became a best seller and a successful Hollywood film.
Similarly, Hollywood science fiction thriller Coma (1978) depicted a horrible conspiracy in a hospital behind an unnatural amount of comas. Now, it is no longer science fiction but has become a story of real life. Particularly in China, it’s a reality. A report by Rashmi Roshan Lali titled West Fumes as China Churns out Cosmetics with convicts skins published in The Times of India, dated 14-9-2005, exposed that, “A Chinese company is harvesting skin from the corpses of executed convict to develop beauty product for sale in the UK and Europe. Amnesty International said that nearly 90 per cent of transplanted kidneys in China come from executed prisoners. Hollywood film Lipstick is also based on such a fact. So, when China is there, this ghoulish malices could easily be spread in Bharat because according to eminent thinker Timothy, “The lust for money is the root of all evils”. And there is no scarcity of such devils in Bharat.
So from Bharathiya dramas, novels to Western research based articles, books and Hollywood films- all indicate the dark reality of organised medical crimes and medical mafias.
Key to Surpassing this Horror
History of medical practice shows that after World War 1, Medical Science became very much technology-based. Various machines and apparatus became inevitable for medical treatment and for medical practitioners the scope of going to each patient’s premises and carrying on medical treatment there reduced considerably.
In the 19th century, many medical practitioners were concerned about sympathy, compassion during medical treatment. In the true sense, during medical education and application, doctors have to forget the tender- hearted affection and become harsh for the sake of patients. Again if he leaves entire sympathy, compassion he would be turned into a cruel and tyrant fellow. To realise the inner contradiction of considering human body as a machine consisting of various instruments and again considering it as a human entity of flesh and blood, is one of the lessons of medical education.
Observation on Divine Gift
Eminent American doctor Cillas Wear Michael in the decades of 1890, made a very heart touching observation that for doctors sympathy, compassion are “Divine Gift”. But one should have to nourish this God gifted virtue in youth and retain it throughout his maturity.
When after World War 1, medical practice became rapidly technology-centric, the scope for culture of sympathy in medical education also reduced. With gradual increase in syllabus, leisure period for the students began to disappear. In the decades of 1920-30, it became impossible to carry on acting, gymnastic, concerting, singing, writing and publishing simultaneously along with study. This is the main difference between the age of Radha Gobinda and the doctors of the next ages.
Youth is the period of nourishing ‘Divine Gift’ – sympathy, compassion etc. According to our ancient Gurukul system, Gurus used to confer their sublime knowledge upon their best disciples having those divine virtues so that those can’t be misused by disgruntled, selfish, inefficient disciples or having achieved those knowledge these sorts of disciples can’t be disastrous, miserable to the mankind.
Guru Dronacharya observed that Ashwatthama was Tamasic (Devilish) by nature and that’s why he conferred the knowledge of Brahmastra upon his best disciple Arjun but not Ashwatthama what he learnt clandestinely. And later on, the ghoulish misdeeds of Ashwatthama proved that Guru Drona was right. But today modern days having a nuclear, selfish, self centric, greedy and unsocial family background or having parents involved in corrupt business and or professional practices could get admission in modern medical education by just cracking NIIT where piousness, tender heart, sympathy,compassion and selfless services like Divine Virtues are exceptionally required.
Medical humanity is a field of study that asks what it means to be human in the context of health and healthcare. It is a holistic response, uniting the arts, humanities and social sciences to address needs in medical education, professional development and patient care.
It developed as a response to concerns that technological and economical upheaval in modern medicines were negatively impacting the relationship between patients and their health-care professionals.
Probably, the origin of Radha Gobinda’s kindness was his acting, gymnastics and writing in youth. So Radha Gobinda’s passion for such creative and performing arts should be viewed as a prime element of his greater life rather than an irrelevant freak.
In the medical sector, there is no elementary dispute between science and business. But to drive this relationship in a proper way, the culture of kindness, compassion, sympathy (Divine Gifts) is inevitable. In the absence of it, the combination of science and business would be the origin of a violent tyranny. Needless to say, today we are observing how terrible and ghoulish the degradation of kindness could be. The recently defamed hospital which makes us stand face-to-face of this modern day’s ghoulish hard reality, probably the forgotten history of the same hospital as well as a vivid recall of Radha Gobinda’s life has the key to surpass this horror.
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