People you did not interview yesterday, Aamir

I do not belong to the vote bank you might be targeting to amass if and when you finally step into politics. I might not even belong to the elite bunch of gurgling living room activists who are congratulating you for putting up a wonderful show yesterday. And I definitely do not belong to the class that deserves any sympathy from you.

I am housewife. I am the wife of a doctor. I am the daughter of a hospital administrator. I am someone who has been treated in a government hospital which brought me back to life when all thought I would live no more (without pulling any ranks, just like any other person would be treated at the hospital....waiting for 3 hours before they even get to see a doctor). I am someone who lost her mother and father-in-law on account of illnesses. I am also someone who is scheduled for a surgery on the 8th of June in a government hospital in Delhi yet I will travel without fear to Mumbai tomorrow and comeback to Delhi just two days before the surgery because I trust my doctors. 

These are the kinds of people you didn't interview yesterday.

The people you didn't interview yesterday come from all parts of the world. Especially the third world countries. They come here. Pay a pittance. Get better and go back. Not for a cosmetic dental package but for life threatening diseases, bypass surgeries, organ transplants.

You didn't call those kids who drink and drive and when the speed demons take over, they meet with near fatal accidents. You didn't ask them how despite their limbs being strewn all over, they were brought to a government hospital at midnight where a dedicated team of doctors (who haven't slept in a long time) stitched them together with immaculate precision. They did not work for money, nor for a raise or a cut. They did it because the kids were young and had a whole life ahead. Nobody would have known if those doctors decided to label those severed limbs unfit to be attached back. But they didn't do that. You didn't ask those doctors why they opted for the tedious surgery instead of doing just the basics formal treatment.

An angry lady barges into an ICU because she has been told that her husband cannot be saved anymore. She is out of control and begins to kick the ventilators of other patients out of frustration. The few female nurses are administering procedures on serious patients so they cannot run to hold her immediately. A male doctors tries to stop her. He is accused of manhandling a lady who belongs to a minority community thus ruining his career. You didn't interview that doctor. Nor did the caregivers of other patients thank him for saving their ventilators. It was his bloody job they think. His job was to call for security, wait for a lady technician and the authorities to take care of it but he intervened for the betterment of others on life support.

You didn't interview private hospital administrators in small towns who are faced with patients who come into their rooms and keep their only piece of jewellery on the table and say "this is all I have got, please save my child". The administrators return the jewellery and excuse them from all hospital fees/consultant charges. These patients come in scores and hundreds. How does the hospital run?? On love and fresh air?

When the world and the patient himself have given up on the disease, a doctor suggests a new treatment which is still in testing stage. You did not interview those running the researches or those performing the thankless operations (either way they get blamed for clinical trials or deaths).

There is a man I know who is a super duper specialist. He came back from the US. Remained unemployed for a couple of months and when he found the job to his liking, he took it. He is a happy doctor saving many many infants & children today. You didn't ask him why he decided to come back and stay on if 'asking for cuts' was such a general practice.

You didn't talk to the doctor who performs Lap appendicectomy in LNJP in the middle of the night. This surgery is free. You did not call a single patient who is getting free medicines. Somethings as expensive as Chemotherapy drugs are free at some govt. hospitals. AIIMS dishes out free medicines worth 800 crore rupees annually. Drugs for HIV are free. Rajasthan govt. is doing a fabulous job but ask anybody in power if they want a 'supply medicine' or a 'local purchase'....the bills will prove what they prefer.

You didn't call the doctors working in PHCs at district levels to ask what their side of the story was. Forming an NGO is not a yardstick of being a good doctor. NGOs work for commercial gains too.You never mentioned all the good work AIIMS, LNJP, Safdarjang, LHMC, TMH, Cooper, KEM etc are doing. And this is just Delhi & Mumbai.

You didn't ask all those people who keep studying to become specialists till the age of 35 and begin taking their first steps of career after that. Whereas their classmates who took up management or IT jobs are already vice-presidents of their companies by then.You did not ask them why they still work for a paltry sum at a government hospital. You only ask them why they charge a premium on their services in a private hospital. You raise your finger at them when they demand their dues. I do not see you asking why a Mac is more expensive than an Acer or why a BMW is more expensive than a Maruti? It is because of what has gone into making that quality product!!!!

You did not interview people who remain sane & humane amidst death, despair, allegations, cursing and yet manage to infuse hope in patients and their families.

Yes Aamir you did not interview many many people before you presented your biased, lopsided and TRP driven episode IV of Satyameva Jayate on Medical Malpractices in India. You did not ask why they are compelled to do malpractices. Is it intentional or is it that they have to pay hafta to the local goons, politicians etc? You did not mind those ads which insist people to keep getting investigations after investigations done even when they don't need them. Availability of investigations under brand names such as executive health check, master health check, senior citizen check etc....are they not trending towards making sure that evidence based medicine take over clinical findings? And the lawsuits???

And you sure enough, did not interview families and friends of doctors, nurses, technicians and all those who are on call 24*7 (do you even know what being on call 24*7 for your whole life means? even on vacations anybody and everybody feels it is their birthright to make a doctor help them if there is a medical emergency). Every wife wants to be priority 1 in her husband's life. But when a doctor tells his would be wife before marriage "you are priority number 2, my first priority will always be my patients", she still happily marries him. Why? Because she knows he is right not because he might or might not make tons of money.

Is this what you imagine when you talk of medical practices?

These are the people you generalized yesterday Amir. You glorified a few doctors in a few states but made doctors in general look like devils. Goodness of individual doctors and other medical staff doing their best in salaried jobs is the side of the story you never presented. You could not find one person who wanted to say, "You know I thought we had no hope but these doctors saved me"?? I find that hard to believe.


Thank God for the IPL final, else we would have been more upset than we already are right now. Shah Rukh and his team came to your rescue from all the bad vibes we never got to send you. Do not forget to thank him in one of your episodes...bahh!

(No I am not an SRK fan, I am an Amir fan who is hurt because he was loved and respected so much before this episode was aired).