A young pregnant woman had been admitted in our antenatal ward for prenatal diagnosis. Someone had tested her serum alpha fetoprotein level in a private clinic and had found it to be elevated. She was sent to our center for amniocentesis and checking of amniotic fluid alpha fetoprotein levels and amniotic fluid cellular karyotype to detect trisomy 21. I found her in the ward during my morning round after being away for a couple of days. The resident doctors told me she had an appointment for today. It was actually to be done in the sonography department, and analyzed in a private laboratory. She was in our ward for lodging, pre- and post-procedure management.
“Follow the standard procedure for prenatal diagnosis as per the PCPNDT act” I said.
The day passed in a flurry of activities. Just about the time I was to go home, a couple of men came to see me.
“We have come to complain that the sonologists kept our patient waiting from noon till now and sent her back without doing the procedure she was to undergo” they said, and showed me the patient’s indoor case paper. I checked it and found that she had undergone an anomaly scan, but no amniocentesis. There were no anomalies.
“They would keep her case paper at the bottom every time it reached the top” one of them complained. “They kept taking all other patients. We requested them to take her, but they wouldn’t.”
That did not sound convincing. The sonologists worked diligently. Perhaps her bladder had not been full enough.
“We both are also working in the civic institutes” one of them said “and still this is the treatment we received. When someone would come and give a greenback to the servant, he would promptly take her in and she would come out shortly thereafter, her work done. What about those who have no money to offer?”
This sounded like a charge of corruption. They did not look like those who did not have money. They working for the civic body, they had said. They had salaries that others would envy.
“I called the corporator and he has told me to get this work done somehow, and he will root out the corruption later.”
That sounded wonderful. A civic corporator to weed out corrpution was just great news. Leaving the corporator to do that, I called the sonography department and found out that the patient did not have an appointment for amniocentesis. She had to go for that appointment after the anomaly scan, which she did not do. Her relatives had taken her to the ward and come to me to get their work done. The senior sonologists would give her an appointment the next day in the morning.
“We have fixed it in a private setup in Thane” the main speaker of the two said. “Please arrange to have her discharged.”
So I called the resident doctor on duty and advised her to discharge the patient at request.
“It is atrocious that civic employees are treated in this shabby way” the main speaker said. “To ask for money to do the work they should be doing as a part of their job!”
“They treat me, a professor in a civic hospital and medical college just like that” I said. “It is everywhere. They demand money even to trim trees growing into our houses and to clean gutters which are choked. When I had gone to the ward to office to seek permission to repair my house which was leaking, I met the engineers. They all ranked much lower than me. Despite showing them my identity card, they treatment me shabbily. They kept relaxing in their chairs while I stood there, looked at me like I had a contagious disease, told me to submit my letter in the dispatch section and they would be along to inspect my place later. That was 10 years ago. I am yet to be honored by their visit. I am told they would have come immediately if I had offered a wad of greenbacks.”
The two guys kept quiet.
“Which department do you work in?” I asked.
“Octroi” the main speaker said.
“Ah. Octroi and water department are said to be the most corrupt departments of the civic body” I said. “It is said only bribes can get any work done there. Is it so?”
The guys had not expected a frontal attack. They hesitated. Then the main speaker said, “Yes. But if one does not accept the money, the others get him transferred elsewhere.”
So they were averse only to giving bribes, not taking bribes. They left soon after that. I had not known one could be forced to be corrupt. Well, one learns something new every day.
