GOA’S LAISSEZ-PASSER By Valmiki Faleiro This story will go down the annals of medical ethics in Goa. Sandhya Bhave, of Assonora, told it in a letter to the ‘Herald,’ June 4. A man took his son to a famous doctor for intestinal pain. Examining the lad (imaginably with high-tech gadgetry), the doc charged ‘exorbitant’ fees, and referred the boy for medical tests. The tests cost Rs.75,000 (about a year’s salary of a graduate in a local private job.) The consultant doctor saw the reports and called for more tests, costing Rs.25,000. This is when a family friend urged the dad to take his son to an old-school doctor. The old doctor examined the boy the traditional way. Seeing the reports, he nodded in disbelief, and prescribed de-worming tablets that cost a mere Rs.15. All symptoms disappeared. The boy was fine… Private doctors and businessmen have set up shops, labelled ‘hospitals,’ run on the shopkeeper mentality of “Poixe hattant, bhát sakant.” Produce the money before you get the purchase. Even if it’s an emergency trauma or oxygen that could save a life… If you’re unfortunate to land at Goa’s modern health shops, remember the doctrine, “No money, no life” (and all this while you thought money couldn’t buy life.) As for Goa’s public hospitals, Health Minister Vishwajeet Rane, the Chief Minister-in- waiting, thinks they will be better run privatized. Bless the ailing, Lord! GOA SEWAGE: Old friend Ganashyam Shirodkar was until recently PWD Minister, Churchill Alemao’s Man Friday. He now is Chairman of Goa Sewage Development Corporation. He wants sewer lines all over Goa. Nice idea, with all blessings of his expenditure-friendly patron-in-chief no doubt. But, what happens when you already have the lines and people don’t connect? In Goa, nothing happens. Pratapsing Rane “inaugurated” the start of work on Margao sewage network in 1985. I was the town’s Municipal President then. The greater geographical area was under the underground sewage network by year 2000. Despite incentives, the vast majority (95% plus) of households – even housing colonies – did not connect to the system. They continue to contaminate ground water with saturated soak pits. There won’t be a single water well in Margao (at least in the area under the sewage network) which is not contaminated with e-coli, the bacteria that breeds on human excreta. This makes the frequent Selaulim pipeline breakdowns even more painful. The useable alternate source, Margao’s legion of ancient water wells, is unusable. (Not that Selaulim water is substantially safer… I don’t mean to create a public scare, but government would do well to test samples from Margao and Vasco at the Health Services lab in Panjim. The truth will then be known.) If Ganashyam’s PWD minister, as journo Ashley Rosario would say, had “the onions,” he would issue an ultimatum that those not connected to the sewage system by a reasonable date, would have their water supply disconnected – and made to drink their own mess. The problems of under-capacity operation of the Sirvodem treatment plant would become history. Put to use the infrastructure already created, before thinking of extending it. And pray, how is Margao’s 10-year, Rs.30 crore, sub- standard sewage network going to be “replaced” – unless one builds (yet another) “parallel” one? SUN SHINES: Strike when the iron is hot, make hay while the sun shines, are old mantras adopted by a Goa minister in a new milieu. While grassroots Goa seethes against ‘mega-housing,’ Revenue Minister Jose Fillip D’Souza ordered all land-use Sanad applications of more than 400 m2 be referred to him prior to approval. Why? To save Goa? Or for a mega catch? Everyone knows that once a file goes into a ministerial chamber, it seldom comes out unless the applicant “meets” the minister. These ministers who rock Goa should be made Dy. Collectors. The unhappy MLAs left out must be appointed Mamlatdars. REPORTAGE: When five people died in a wall collapse at Porvorim June 8, a local newspaper opened with the words, “The incessant rains and strong winds caused … the collapse.” Did you hear rains and winds knocked off stone walls in Goa before? What was not said is the retaining-cum-compound wall was built more than twice its approved height. To hide a mega-project of 400 flats on a 21,000 m2 plot? That’s not all. While all newspapers named the owner of the wall, this one was ominously silent. The name ostensibly belonged to the same family that owned the newspaper. Today, thanks to the presence of other newspapers, it is difficult to suppress news. This newspaper, used to a 20-year monopoly, must now find ways to show the bag yet hide the cat. (Ends.) The Valmiki Faleiro weekly column at: http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=330 ============================================================================== The above article appeared in the June 22, 2008 edition of the Herald, Goa
