So out of reach have doctors become during the pandemic that residents themselves are now trying to create makeshift platforms to bring doctors closer to patients.
Newtown CC Block Residents’ Welfare Association has struck an arrangement with resident doctors who have agreed to tend to patients in the common space on the ground floor of one of their co-operative buildings.
Open-air venue
The makeshift clinic is at Need Co-operative Housing Society, housed at CC 45, in Street 245. A nearby landmark would be Biswa Bangla Gate. A table, a chair and a makeshift bed for inspection have been set up in an area cordoned off with curtains.
“I am a child specialist but during the pandemic I have been getting calls to treat adults too. They have nowhere to go as all doctors have been refusing them,” said Atanu Banerjee, one of the doctors who will be sitting at the clinic. “I myself am a senior citizen but have gone on house visits and even tended to patients sitting outside medicine shops.”
Banerjee then spoke to the block association to start the clinic. “We had long wanted to start something like this but seeing people’s helplessness during the lockdown accelerated the process,” said vice-president of the association Biman Samaddar. “New Town looks like a rich man’s abode from afar but what about labourers? The doctor’s fee paid by a rich man is often the monthly income of labourers.”
Other resident doctors who will be chipping in are Asok Mukherjee and Subrata Dey. “I’m currently a resident of Shyambazar but have a house being built in CC Block,” said the head of the cardiothoracic surgery department at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. While he supports the initiative, he has arranged for his junior colleague, Subhajit Sharma, to come here regularly.
“The incidence of heart attack itself has reached pandemic proportions in our state but most patients of high blood pressure don’t even know what they suffer from,” said Dey. “If clinics like this can get them to check their sugar and pressure, it could save lives.”
There was also Himangshu Sekhar Patra, a physician who wants to help but is unable to do so at the moment. “My hospital is in Howrah and commuting takes time. We are overworked and after wearing two masks the entire day I am left with a bad headache and no energy to volunteer. I shall consider lending a hand after the pandemic,” he said.
Secretary of the association Atanu Mahapatra said the clinic would be functional four to five days a week with details to be finalised soon. Some more doctors are keen to join the movement. “While we are calling this initiative Charitable Doctors’ Clinic we have not made it free as it would then not be taken seriously. The fee for residents is Rs 300 and that for labourers, caretakers and other needy people is Rs 50,” he said.
Also present was the state-level assistant secretary of Paschim Banga Vigyan Mancha, Sourav Chakrabarti. He cited how once everyone was flocking to a village in Maslandapur for a supposed miracle cure for all diseases — mud and water.
“We tested the concoction, found it dangerous for consumption and tried to break the congregation. We faced massive backlash and despite all our logic and reasoning, the mob had one question that had us hanging our heads in shame: ‘Will you take responsibility for our health?’ Our country spends a miniscule amount on health and there is a desperate need for such clinics to bail out needy patients,” Chakrabarti said.
The first patient at the clinic, on Sunday, was three-year-old Avipsa Sen, who had stomach ache. “We have our backs against the wall whenever my daughter falls ill,” said her mother Archana, the wife of a caretaker in a nearby building. “I have to cycle to far-off places in search of a doctor with Avipsa tied to the rear seat so she doesn’t fall off.”
“Instead of waiting for the government to come up with a solution, it’s good that the association started this,” said Avijit Roychoudhury, chairman of the co-operative, where the clinic has come up. Eventually they want to shift the setup to some other permanent space.