Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Code Context


        trigger_error($message, E_USER_DEPRECATED);

    }
$message = 'The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php.'
$stackFrame = (int) 1
$trace = [
	(int) 0 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ServerRequest.php',
		'line' => (int) 2421,
		'function' => 'deprecationWarning',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => 'The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead.'
		]
	],
	(int) 1 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php',
		'line' => (int) 73,
		'function' => 'offsetGet',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ServerRequest',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => 'catslug'
		]
	],
	(int) 2 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Controller/Controller.php',
		'line' => (int) 610,
		'function' => 'printArticle',
		'class' => 'App\Controller\ArtileDetailController',
		'object' => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	],
	(int) 3 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php',
		'line' => (int) 120,
		'function' => 'invokeAction',
		'class' => 'Cake\Controller\Controller',
		'object' => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	],
	(int) 4 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php',
		'line' => (int) 94,
		'function' => '_invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 5 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/BaseApplication.php',
		'line' => (int) 235,
		'function' => 'dispatch',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 6 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\BaseApplication',
		'object' => object(App\Application) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 7 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 162,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 8 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 9 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 88,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 10 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 11 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 96,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 12 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 13 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 51,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 14 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Server.php',
		'line' => (int) 98,
		'function' => 'run',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\MiddlewareQueue) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 15 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/webroot/index.php',
		'line' => (int) 39,
		'function' => 'run',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Server',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Server) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	]
]
$frame = [
	'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php',
	'line' => (int) 73,
	'function' => 'offsetGet',
	'class' => 'Cake\Http\ServerRequest',
	'object' => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {
		trustProxy => false
		[protected] params => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] data => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] query => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] cookies => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] _environment => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] url => 'hindi/news-clippings/the-lives-of-the-poor-have-no-value-by-mahesh-vijapurkar-956/print'
		[protected] base => ''
		[protected] webroot => '/'
		[protected] here => '/hindi/news-clippings/the-lives-of-the-poor-have-no-value-by-mahesh-vijapurkar-956/print'
		[protected] trustedProxies => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] _input => null
		[protected] _detectors => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] _detectorCache => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] stream => object(Zend\Diactoros\PhpInputStream) {}
		[protected] uri => object(Zend\Diactoros\Uri) {}
		[protected] session => object(Cake\Http\Session) {}
		[protected] attributes => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] emulatedAttributes => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] uploadedFiles => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] protocol => null
		[protected] requestTarget => null
		[private] deprecatedProperties => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	},
	'type' => '->',
	'args' => [
		(int) 0 => 'catslug'
	]
]
deprecationWarning - CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311
Cake\Http\ServerRequest::offsetGet() - CORE/src/Http/ServerRequest.php, line 2421
App\Controller\ArtileDetailController::printArticle() - APP/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line 73
Cake\Controller\Controller::invokeAction() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 610
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 120
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51
Cake\Http\Server::run() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 98

Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Code Context


        trigger_error($message, E_USER_DEPRECATED);

    }
$message = 'The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php.'
$stackFrame = (int) 1
$trace = [
	(int) 0 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ServerRequest.php',
		'line' => (int) 2421,
		'function' => 'deprecationWarning',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => 'The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead.'
		]
	],
	(int) 1 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php',
		'line' => (int) 74,
		'function' => 'offsetGet',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ServerRequest',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => 'artileslug'
		]
	],
	(int) 2 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Controller/Controller.php',
		'line' => (int) 610,
		'function' => 'printArticle',
		'class' => 'App\Controller\ArtileDetailController',
		'object' => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	],
	(int) 3 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php',
		'line' => (int) 120,
		'function' => 'invokeAction',
		'class' => 'Cake\Controller\Controller',
		'object' => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	],
	(int) 4 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php',
		'line' => (int) 94,
		'function' => '_invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 5 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/BaseApplication.php',
		'line' => (int) 235,
		'function' => 'dispatch',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 6 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\BaseApplication',
		'object' => object(App\Application) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 7 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 162,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 8 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 9 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 88,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 10 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 11 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 96,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 12 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 13 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 51,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 14 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Server.php',
		'line' => (int) 98,
		'function' => 'run',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\MiddlewareQueue) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 15 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/webroot/index.php',
		'line' => (int) 39,
		'function' => 'run',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Server',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Server) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	]
]
$frame = [
	'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php',
	'line' => (int) 74,
	'function' => 'offsetGet',
	'class' => 'Cake\Http\ServerRequest',
	'object' => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {
		trustProxy => false
		[protected] params => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] data => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] query => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] cookies => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] _environment => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] url => 'hindi/news-clippings/the-lives-of-the-poor-have-no-value-by-mahesh-vijapurkar-956/print'
		[protected] base => ''
		[protected] webroot => '/'
		[protected] here => '/hindi/news-clippings/the-lives-of-the-poor-have-no-value-by-mahesh-vijapurkar-956/print'
		[protected] trustedProxies => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] _input => null
		[protected] _detectors => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] _detectorCache => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] stream => object(Zend\Diactoros\PhpInputStream) {}
		[protected] uri => object(Zend\Diactoros\Uri) {}
		[protected] session => object(Cake\Http\Session) {}
		[protected] attributes => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] emulatedAttributes => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] uploadedFiles => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] protocol => null
		[protected] requestTarget => null
		[private] deprecatedProperties => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	},
	'type' => '->',
	'args' => [
		(int) 0 => 'artileslug'
	]
]
deprecationWarning - CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311
Cake\Http\ServerRequest::offsetGet() - CORE/src/Http/ServerRequest.php, line 2421
App\Controller\ArtileDetailController::printArticle() - APP/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line 74
Cake\Controller\Controller::invokeAction() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 610
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 120
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51
Cake\Http\Server::run() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 98

Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Code Context
            if (Configure::read('debug')) {

                trigger_error($message, E_USER_WARNING);

            } else {
$response = object(Cake\Http\Response) {

	'status' => (int) 200,
	'contentType' => 'text/html',
	'headers' => [
		'Content-Type' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	],
	'file' => null,
	'fileRange' => [],
	'cookies' => object(Cake\Http\Cookie\CookieCollection) {},
	'cacheDirectives' => [],
	'body' => '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <link rel="canonical" href="https://im4change.in/<pre class="cake-error"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-trace').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-trace').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none');"><b>Notice</b> (8)</a>: Undefined variable: urlPrefix [<b>APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp</b>, line <b>8</b>]<div id="cakeErr68075c2f8807b-trace" class="cake-stack-trace" style="display: none;"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-code').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-code').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Code</a> <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-context').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-context').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Context</a><pre id="cakeErr68075c2f8807b-code" class="cake-code-dump" style="display: none;"><code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB"></span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">head</span><span style="color: #007700">&gt;
</span></span></code>
<span class="code-highlight"><code><span style="color: #000000">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&lt;link&nbsp;rel="canonical"&nbsp;href="<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">Configure</span><span style="color: #007700">::</span><span style="color: #0000BB">read</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">'SITE_URL'</span><span style="color: #007700">);&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$urlPrefix</span><span style="color: #007700">;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">category</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">slug</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>/<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">seo_url</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>.html"/&gt;
</span></code></span>
<code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">meta&nbsp;http</span><span style="color: #007700">-</span><span style="color: #0000BB">equiv</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"Content-Type"&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">content</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"text/html;&nbsp;charset=utf-8"</span><span style="color: #007700">/&gt;
</span></span></code></pre><pre id="cakeErr68075c2f8807b-context" class="cake-context" style="display: none;">$viewFile = &#039;/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp&#039;
$dataForView = [
	&#039;article_current&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 41836,
		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar&#039;,
		&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &amp;quot;not for a consideration&amp;quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not &#039;consumers.&#039; &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Amputation&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Key issue&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don&#039;t prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Value of lives&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people&#039;s lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Doesn&#039;t the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Unconscionable&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state&#039;s programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people&#039;s welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Equality&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Time we changed this.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
		&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;H&#039;,
		&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 82,
		&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;the-lives-of-the-poor-have-no-value-by-mahesh-vijapurkar-956&#039;,
		&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
		&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
		&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 956,
		&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
		&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;
	
	},
	&#039;articleid&#039; =&gt; (int) 41836,
	&#039;metaTitle&#039; =&gt; &#039;न्यूज क्लिपिंग्स् | The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar&#039;,
	&#039;metaKeywords&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;metaDesc&#039; =&gt; &#039;
Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &amp;quot;not for a consideration&amp;quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not &#039;consumers.&#039; &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Amputation&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Key issue&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don&#039;t prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Value of lives&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people&#039;s lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Doesn&#039;t the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Unconscionable&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state&#039;s programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people&#039;s welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Equality&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Time we changed this.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;&lt;em&gt;Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;Hindi&#039;,
	&#039;SITE_URL&#039; =&gt; &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;,
	&#039;site_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;im4change&#039;,
	&#039;adminprix&#039; =&gt; &#039;admin&#039;
]
$article_current = object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

	&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 41836,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar&#039;,
	&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &amp;quot;not for a consideration&amp;quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not &#039;consumers.&#039; &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Amputation&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Key issue&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don&#039;t prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Value of lives&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people&#039;s lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Doesn&#039;t the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Unconscionable&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state&#039;s programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people&#039;s welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Equality&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Time we changed this.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
	&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;H&#039;,
	&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 82,
	&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;the-lives-of-the-poor-have-no-value-by-mahesh-vijapurkar-956&#039;,
	&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
	&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
	&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 956,
	&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
	&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
		&#039;*&#039; =&gt; true,
		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; false
	],
	&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;

}
$articleid = (int) 41836
$metaTitle = &#039;न्यूज क्लिपिंग्स् | The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar&#039;
$metaKeywords = null
$metaDesc = &#039;
Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &amp;quot;not for a consideration&amp;quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not &#039;consumers.&#039; &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Amputation&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Key issue&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don&#039;t prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Value of lives&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people&#039;s lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Doesn&#039;t the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Unconscionable&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state&#039;s programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people&#039;s welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Equality&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Time we changed this.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;&lt;em&gt;Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&#039;
$lang = &#039;Hindi&#039;
$SITE_URL = &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;
$site_title = &#039;im4change&#039;
$adminprix = &#039;admin&#039;</pre><pre class="stack-trace">include - APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1413
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1374
Cake\View\View::renderLayout() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 927
Cake\View\View::render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 885
Cake\Controller\Controller::render() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 791
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 126
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51</pre></div></pre>news-clippings/the-lives-of-the-poor-have-no-value-by-mahesh-vijapurkar-956.html"/>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
    <link href="https://im4change.in/css/control.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
          media="all"/>
    <title>न्यूज क्लिपिंग्स् | The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar | Im4change.org</title>
    <meta name="description" content="
Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to..."/>
    <script src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-migrate.min.js"></script>
    <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

        $(document).ready(function () {
            var img = $("img")[0]; // Get my img elem
            var pic_real_width, pic_real_height;
            $("<img/>") // Make in memory copy of image to avoid css issues
                .attr("src", $(img).attr("src"))
                .load(function () {
                    pic_real_width = this.width;   // Note: $(this).width() will not
                    pic_real_height = this.height; // work for in memory images.
                });
        });
    </script>
    <style type="text/css">
        @media screen {
            div.divFooter {
                display: block;
            }
        }

        @media print {
            .printbutton {
                display: none !important;
            }
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="98%" align="center">
    <tr>
        <td class="top_bg">
            <div class="divFooter">
                <img src="https://im4change.in/images/logo1.jpg" height="59" border="0"
                     alt="Resource centre on India's rural distress" style="padding-top:14px;"/>
            </div>

        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td id="topspace">&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr id="topspace">
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-bottom:1px solid #000; padding-top:10px;" class="printbutton">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td width="100%">
            <h1 class="news_headlines" style="font-style:normal">
                <strong>The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar</strong></h1>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td width="100%" style="font-family:Arial, 'Segoe Script', 'Segoe UI', sans-serif, serif"><font size="3">
                <p align="justify">
<font >Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &quot;not for a consideration&quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not 'consumers.' </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Amputation</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Key issue</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don't prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Value of lives</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people's lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Doesn't the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Unconscionable</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state's programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people's welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Equality</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Time we changed this.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font ><em>Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator<br />
</em></font>
</p>               </font>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-top:1px solid #000; border-bottom:1px solid #000;padding-top:10px;">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>
</table></body>
</html>'

}
$maxBufferLength = (int) 8192
$file = '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php'
$line = (int) 853
$message = 'Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853'
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emit() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48
Cake\Http\Server::emit() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 141
[main] - ROOT/webroot/index.php, line 39

Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Code Context
            $response->getStatusCode(),

            ($reasonPhrase ? ' ' . $reasonPhrase : '')

        ));
$response = object(Cake\Http\Response) {

	'status' => (int) 200,
	'contentType' => 'text/html',
	'headers' => [
		'Content-Type' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	],
	'file' => null,
	'fileRange' => [],
	'cookies' => object(Cake\Http\Cookie\CookieCollection) {},
	'cacheDirectives' => [],
	'body' => '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <link rel="canonical" href="https://im4change.in/<pre class="cake-error"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-trace').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-trace').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none');"><b>Notice</b> (8)</a>: Undefined variable: urlPrefix [<b>APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp</b>, line <b>8</b>]<div id="cakeErr68075c2f8807b-trace" class="cake-stack-trace" style="display: none;"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-code').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-code').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Code</a> <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-context').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-context').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Context</a><pre id="cakeErr68075c2f8807b-code" class="cake-code-dump" style="display: none;"><code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB"></span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">head</span><span style="color: #007700">&gt;
</span></span></code>
<span class="code-highlight"><code><span style="color: #000000">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&lt;link&nbsp;rel="canonical"&nbsp;href="<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">Configure</span><span style="color: #007700">::</span><span style="color: #0000BB">read</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">'SITE_URL'</span><span style="color: #007700">);&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$urlPrefix</span><span style="color: #007700">;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">category</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">slug</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>/<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">seo_url</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>.html"/&gt;
</span></code></span>
<code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">meta&nbsp;http</span><span style="color: #007700">-</span><span style="color: #0000BB">equiv</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"Content-Type"&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">content</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"text/html;&nbsp;charset=utf-8"</span><span style="color: #007700">/&gt;
</span></span></code></pre><pre id="cakeErr68075c2f8807b-context" class="cake-context" style="display: none;">$viewFile = &#039;/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp&#039;
$dataForView = [
	&#039;article_current&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 41836,
		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar&#039;,
		&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &amp;quot;not for a consideration&amp;quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not &#039;consumers.&#039; &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Amputation&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Key issue&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don&#039;t prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Value of lives&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people&#039;s lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Doesn&#039;t the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Unconscionable&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state&#039;s programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people&#039;s welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Equality&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Time we changed this.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
		&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;H&#039;,
		&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 82,
		&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;the-lives-of-the-poor-have-no-value-by-mahesh-vijapurkar-956&#039;,
		&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
		&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
		&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 956,
		&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
		&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;
	
	},
	&#039;articleid&#039; =&gt; (int) 41836,
	&#039;metaTitle&#039; =&gt; &#039;न्यूज क्लिपिंग्स् | The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar&#039;,
	&#039;metaKeywords&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;metaDesc&#039; =&gt; &#039;
Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &amp;quot;not for a consideration&amp;quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not &#039;consumers.&#039; &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Amputation&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Key issue&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don&#039;t prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Value of lives&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people&#039;s lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Doesn&#039;t the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Unconscionable&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state&#039;s programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people&#039;s welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Equality&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Time we changed this.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;&lt;em&gt;Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;Hindi&#039;,
	&#039;SITE_URL&#039; =&gt; &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;,
	&#039;site_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;im4change&#039;,
	&#039;adminprix&#039; =&gt; &#039;admin&#039;
]
$article_current = object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

	&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 41836,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar&#039;,
	&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &amp;quot;not for a consideration&amp;quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not &#039;consumers.&#039; &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Amputation&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Key issue&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don&#039;t prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Value of lives&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people&#039;s lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Doesn&#039;t the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Unconscionable&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state&#039;s programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people&#039;s welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Equality&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Time we changed this.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
	&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;H&#039;,
	&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 82,
	&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;the-lives-of-the-poor-have-no-value-by-mahesh-vijapurkar-956&#039;,
	&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
	&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
	&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 956,
	&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
	&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
		&#039;*&#039; =&gt; true,
		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; false
	],
	&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;

}
$articleid = (int) 41836
$metaTitle = &#039;न्यूज क्लिपिंग्स् | The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar&#039;
$metaKeywords = null
$metaDesc = &#039;
Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &amp;quot;not for a consideration&amp;quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not &#039;consumers.&#039; &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Amputation&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Key issue&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don&#039;t prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Value of lives&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people&#039;s lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Doesn&#039;t the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Unconscionable&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state&#039;s programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people&#039;s welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Equality&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Time we changed this.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;&lt;em&gt;Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&#039;
$lang = &#039;Hindi&#039;
$SITE_URL = &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;
$site_title = &#039;im4change&#039;
$adminprix = &#039;admin&#039;</pre><pre class="stack-trace">include - APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1413
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1374
Cake\View\View::renderLayout() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 927
Cake\View\View::render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 885
Cake\Controller\Controller::render() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 791
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 126
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51</pre></div></pre>news-clippings/the-lives-of-the-poor-have-no-value-by-mahesh-vijapurkar-956.html"/>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
    <link href="https://im4change.in/css/control.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
          media="all"/>
    <title>न्यूज क्लिपिंग्स् | The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar | Im4change.org</title>
    <meta name="description" content="
Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to..."/>
    <script src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-migrate.min.js"></script>
    <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

        $(document).ready(function () {
            var img = $("img")[0]; // Get my img elem
            var pic_real_width, pic_real_height;
            $("<img/>") // Make in memory copy of image to avoid css issues
                .attr("src", $(img).attr("src"))
                .load(function () {
                    pic_real_width = this.width;   // Note: $(this).width() will not
                    pic_real_height = this.height; // work for in memory images.
                });
        });
    </script>
    <style type="text/css">
        @media screen {
            div.divFooter {
                display: block;
            }
        }

        @media print {
            .printbutton {
                display: none !important;
            }
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="98%" align="center">
    <tr>
        <td class="top_bg">
            <div class="divFooter">
                <img src="https://im4change.in/images/logo1.jpg" height="59" border="0"
                     alt="Resource centre on India's rural distress" style="padding-top:14px;"/>
            </div>

        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td id="topspace">&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr id="topspace">
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-bottom:1px solid #000; padding-top:10px;" class="printbutton">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td width="100%">
            <h1 class="news_headlines" style="font-style:normal">
                <strong>The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar</strong></h1>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td width="100%" style="font-family:Arial, 'Segoe Script', 'Segoe UI', sans-serif, serif"><font size="3">
                <p align="justify">
<font >Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &quot;not for a consideration&quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not 'consumers.' </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Amputation</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Key issue</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don't prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Value of lives</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people's lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Doesn't the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Unconscionable</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state's programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people's welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Equality</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Time we changed this.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font ><em>Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator<br />
</em></font>
</p>               </font>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-top:1px solid #000; border-bottom:1px solid #000;padding-top:10px;">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>
</table></body>
</html>'

}
$reasonPhrase = 'OK'
header - [internal], line ??
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emitStatusLine() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emit() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 54
Cake\Http\Server::emit() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 141
[main] - ROOT/webroot/index.php, line 39

Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
Code Context
                    $value

                ), $first);

                $first = false;
$response = object(Cake\Http\Response) {

	'status' => (int) 200,
	'contentType' => 'text/html',
	'headers' => [
		'Content-Type' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	],
	'file' => null,
	'fileRange' => [],
	'cookies' => object(Cake\Http\Cookie\CookieCollection) {},
	'cacheDirectives' => [],
	'body' => '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <link rel="canonical" href="https://im4change.in/<pre class="cake-error"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-trace').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-trace').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none');"><b>Notice</b> (8)</a>: Undefined variable: urlPrefix [<b>APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp</b>, line <b>8</b>]<div id="cakeErr68075c2f8807b-trace" class="cake-stack-trace" style="display: none;"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-code').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-code').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Code</a> <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-context').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68075c2f8807b-context').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Context</a><pre id="cakeErr68075c2f8807b-code" class="cake-code-dump" style="display: none;"><code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB"></span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">head</span><span style="color: #007700">&gt;
</span></span></code>
<span class="code-highlight"><code><span style="color: #000000">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&lt;link&nbsp;rel="canonical"&nbsp;href="<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">Configure</span><span style="color: #007700">::</span><span style="color: #0000BB">read</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">'SITE_URL'</span><span style="color: #007700">);&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$urlPrefix</span><span style="color: #007700">;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">category</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">slug</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>/<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">seo_url</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>.html"/&gt;
</span></code></span>
<code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">meta&nbsp;http</span><span style="color: #007700">-</span><span style="color: #0000BB">equiv</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"Content-Type"&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">content</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"text/html;&nbsp;charset=utf-8"</span><span style="color: #007700">/&gt;
</span></span></code></pre><pre id="cakeErr68075c2f8807b-context" class="cake-context" style="display: none;">$viewFile = &#039;/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp&#039;
$dataForView = [
	&#039;article_current&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 41836,
		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar&#039;,
		&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &amp;quot;not for a consideration&amp;quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not &#039;consumers.&#039; &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Amputation&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Key issue&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don&#039;t prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Value of lives&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people&#039;s lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Doesn&#039;t the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Unconscionable&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state&#039;s programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people&#039;s welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Equality&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Time we changed this.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
		&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;H&#039;,
		&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 82,
		&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;the-lives-of-the-poor-have-no-value-by-mahesh-vijapurkar-956&#039;,
		&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
		&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
		&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 956,
		&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
		&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;
	
	},
	&#039;articleid&#039; =&gt; (int) 41836,
	&#039;metaTitle&#039; =&gt; &#039;न्यूज क्लिपिंग्स् | The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar&#039;,
	&#039;metaKeywords&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;metaDesc&#039; =&gt; &#039;
Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &amp;quot;not for a consideration&amp;quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not &#039;consumers.&#039; &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Amputation&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Key issue&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don&#039;t prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Value of lives&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people&#039;s lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Doesn&#039;t the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Unconscionable&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state&#039;s programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people&#039;s welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Equality&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Time we changed this.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;&lt;em&gt;Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;Hindi&#039;,
	&#039;SITE_URL&#039; =&gt; &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;,
	&#039;site_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;im4change&#039;,
	&#039;adminprix&#039; =&gt; &#039;admin&#039;
]
$article_current = object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

	&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 41836,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar&#039;,
	&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &amp;quot;not for a consideration&amp;quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not &#039;consumers.&#039; &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Amputation&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Key issue&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don&#039;t prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Value of lives&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people&#039;s lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Doesn&#039;t the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Unconscionable&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state&#039;s programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people&#039;s welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Equality&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Time we changed this.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
	&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;H&#039;,
	&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 82,
	&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;the-lives-of-the-poor-have-no-value-by-mahesh-vijapurkar-956&#039;,
	&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
	&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
	&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 956,
	&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
	&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
		&#039;*&#039; =&gt; true,
		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; false
	],
	&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;

}
$articleid = (int) 41836
$metaTitle = &#039;न्यूज क्लिपिंग्स् | The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar&#039;
$metaKeywords = null
$metaDesc = &#039;
Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &amp;quot;not for a consideration&amp;quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not &#039;consumers.&#039; &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Amputation&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Key issue&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don&#039;t prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Value of lives&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people&#039;s lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Doesn&#039;t the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Unconscionable&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state&#039;s programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people&#039;s welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Equality&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;Time we changed this.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font &gt;&lt;em&gt;Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&#039;
$lang = &#039;Hindi&#039;
$SITE_URL = &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;
$site_title = &#039;im4change&#039;
$adminprix = &#039;admin&#039;</pre><pre class="stack-trace">include - APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1413
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1374
Cake\View\View::renderLayout() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 927
Cake\View\View::render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 885
Cake\Controller\Controller::render() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 791
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 126
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51</pre></div></pre>news-clippings/the-lives-of-the-poor-have-no-value-by-mahesh-vijapurkar-956.html"/>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
    <link href="https://im4change.in/css/control.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
          media="all"/>
    <title>न्यूज क्लिपिंग्स् | The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar | Im4change.org</title>
    <meta name="description" content="
Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to..."/>
    <script src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-migrate.min.js"></script>
    <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

        $(document).ready(function () {
            var img = $("img")[0]; // Get my img elem
            var pic_real_width, pic_real_height;
            $("<img/>") // Make in memory copy of image to avoid css issues
                .attr("src", $(img).attr("src"))
                .load(function () {
                    pic_real_width = this.width;   // Note: $(this).width() will not
                    pic_real_height = this.height; // work for in memory images.
                });
        });
    </script>
    <style type="text/css">
        @media screen {
            div.divFooter {
                display: block;
            }
        }

        @media print {
            .printbutton {
                display: none !important;
            }
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="98%" align="center">
    <tr>
        <td class="top_bg">
            <div class="divFooter">
                <img src="https://im4change.in/images/logo1.jpg" height="59" border="0"
                     alt="Resource centre on India's rural distress" style="padding-top:14px;"/>
            </div>

        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td id="topspace">&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr id="topspace">
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-bottom:1px solid #000; padding-top:10px;" class="printbutton">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td width="100%">
            <h1 class="news_headlines" style="font-style:normal">
                <strong>The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar</strong></h1>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td width="100%" style="font-family:Arial, 'Segoe Script', 'Segoe UI', sans-serif, serif"><font size="3">
                <p align="justify">
<font >Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &quot;not for a consideration&quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not 'consumers.' </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Amputation</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Key issue</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don't prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Value of lives</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people's lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Doesn't the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Unconscionable</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state's programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people's welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Equality</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Time we changed this.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font ><em>Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator<br />
</em></font>
</p>               </font>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-top:1px solid #000; border-bottom:1px solid #000;padding-top:10px;">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>
</table></body>
</html>'

}
$cookies = []
$values = [
	(int) 0 => 'text/html; charset=UTF-8'
]
$name = 'Content-Type'
$first = true
$value = 'text/html; charset=UTF-8'
header - [internal], line ??
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emitHeaders() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emit() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 55
Cake\Http\Server::emit() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 141
[main] - ROOT/webroot/index.php, line 39

<head>

    <link rel="canonical" href="<?php echo Configure::read('SITE_URL'); ?><?php echo $urlPrefix;?><?php echo $article_current->category->slug; ?>/<?php echo $article_current->seo_url; ?>.html"/>

    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>

$viewFile = '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp'
$dataForView = [
	'article_current' => object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

		'id' => (int) 41836,
		'title' => 'The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar',
		'subheading' => '',
		'description' => '<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &quot;not for a consideration&quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not 'consumers.' </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Amputation</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Key issue</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don't prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Value of lives</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people's lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Doesn't the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Unconscionable</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state's programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people's welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Equality</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Time we changed this.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3"><em>Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator<br />
</em></font>
</p>
',
		'credit_writer' => '',
		'article_img' => '',
		'article_img_thumb' => '',
		'status' => (int) 1,
		'show_on_home' => (int) 1,
		'lang' => 'H',
		'category_id' => (int) 82,
		'tag_keyword' => '',
		'seo_url' => 'the-lives-of-the-poor-have-no-value-by-mahesh-vijapurkar-956',
		'meta_title' => null,
		'meta_keywords' => null,
		'meta_description' => null,
		'noindex' => (int) 0,
		'publish_date' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
		'most_visit_section_id' => null,
		'article_big_img' => null,
		'liveid' => (int) 956,
		'created' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'modified' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'edate' => '',
		'tags' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'category' => object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
		'[new]' => false,
		'[accessible]' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		'[dirty]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[original]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[virtual]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[hasErrors]' => false,
		'[errors]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[invalid]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[repository]' => 'Articles'
	
	},
	'articleid' => (int) 41836,
	'metaTitle' => 'न्यूज क्लिपिंग्स् | The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar',
	'metaKeywords' => null,
	'metaDesc' => '
Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to...',
	'disp' => '<p align="justify">
<font >Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &quot;not for a consideration&quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not 'consumers.' </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Amputation</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Key issue</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don't prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Value of lives</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people's lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Doesn't the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Unconscionable</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state's programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people's welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Equality</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Time we changed this.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font ><em>Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator<br />
</em></font>
</p>',
	'lang' => 'Hindi',
	'SITE_URL' => 'https://im4change.in/',
	'site_title' => 'im4change',
	'adminprix' => 'admin'
]
$article_current = object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

	'id' => (int) 41836,
	'title' => 'The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar',
	'subheading' => '',
	'description' => '<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &quot;not for a consideration&quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not 'consumers.' </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Amputation</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Key issue</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don't prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Value of lives</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people's lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Doesn't the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Unconscionable</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state's programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people's welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Equality</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Time we changed this.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3"><em>Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator<br />
</em></font>
</p>
',
	'credit_writer' => '',
	'article_img' => '',
	'article_img_thumb' => '',
	'status' => (int) 1,
	'show_on_home' => (int) 1,
	'lang' => 'H',
	'category_id' => (int) 82,
	'tag_keyword' => '',
	'seo_url' => 'the-lives-of-the-poor-have-no-value-by-mahesh-vijapurkar-956',
	'meta_title' => null,
	'meta_keywords' => null,
	'meta_description' => null,
	'noindex' => (int) 0,
	'publish_date' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
	'most_visit_section_id' => null,
	'article_big_img' => null,
	'liveid' => (int) 956,
	'created' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	'modified' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	'edate' => '',
	'tags' => [],
	'category' => object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
	'[new]' => false,
	'[accessible]' => [
		'*' => true,
		'id' => false
	],
	'[dirty]' => [],
	'[original]' => [],
	'[virtual]' => [],
	'[hasErrors]' => false,
	'[errors]' => [],
	'[invalid]' => [],
	'[repository]' => 'Articles'

}
$articleid = (int) 41836
$metaTitle = 'न्यूज क्लिपिंग्स् | The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar'
$metaKeywords = null
$metaDesc = '
Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to...'
$disp = '<p align="justify">
<font >Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things &quot;not for a consideration&quot; and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not 'consumers.' </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Amputation</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Key issue</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don't prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Value of lives</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people's lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Doesn't the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Unconscionable</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state's programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people's welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Equality</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. </font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font >Time we changed this.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font ><em>Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator<br />
</em></font>
</p>'
$lang = 'Hindi'
$SITE_URL = 'https://im4change.in/'
$site_title = 'im4change'
$adminprix = 'admin'

include - APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1413
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1374
Cake\View\View::renderLayout() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 927
Cake\View\View::render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 885
Cake\Controller\Controller::render() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 791
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 126
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51

The lives of the poor have no value? by Mahesh Vijapurkar

Beware. If you are poor, go to a municipal or government hospital and seek medical help, chances are that anything can be done to you and if it affects your life or livelihood, there is nothing can be done to secure protection even if it is a case of medical negligence. Because, when you do not pay, you are getting things "not for a consideration" and when that consideration -- fees or charges as the case may be -- is absent, then the victim of even medical negligence has no leg to stand on for such individuals are not 'consumers.' Therefore, the Maharashtra [ Images ] State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has told Sudhakar Shetty that his petition against the KEM Hospital in Mumbai [ Images ], run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, for medical negligence did not hold water, He had to limp out of the hearing, perhaps shocked. Amputation Sudhkar Shetty is one of those who earned about Rs 8,000 per month and comes in the category of the poor, just marginally above the poverty line. He was told that his leg, where the gangrene stemming out of a shoe bite, had spread, needed to be amputated. He shifted out to a private hospital and yet, the leg had to be chopped off. He alleged medical negligence. But since he was a patient seeking free medical treatment, other reasons, perhaps quite tenable, were actually subsidiary why the case was thrown out. I am not in agreement with this at all. I am not a lawyer to cite laws and rules and sections and enactments. But on the face of it, this protection afforded to the hospitals in the public domain is ridiculous. Does it mean that the poor should have no defence against the insensitive, callous, uncaring public sector arrangements? Key issue It raises the fundamental question: if a patient who walks into a public hospital because he cannot afford the private, is he gambling with his life? We all know how the public hospitals are, where the authorities cannot even keep the premises free of the odious smells of drying urine. The health segment of the MCGM has, for 2009-2010, budgeted an expenditure of Rs 1,228 crore which is over ten times the receipts and incomes under that head which points to the enormous size of its healthcare system and the number of people who would be using it. It is common knowledge that the rich don't prefer them, the poor do though with some reluctance. Value of lives It buttresses the not-so-uncommon feeling amongst the people, especially the disadvantaged, that the poor people's lives have no value and that they are less of human beings. That they count for nothing except as a number in a set of statistics. Doesn't the civic body which runs the hospital have a duty to perform? It has. If an organisation, in this case, the civic body which is an arm of the state given the regulatory tasks it has been tasked with under the statutes, runs free medical services programme, can it claim that those it serves are not consumers and therefore, have to take a chance when they walk into its portals? Then what happens to the rights of the people who depend on the public services as in the various government hospitals across the country to the primary health centres. These institutions, because of the protection now afforded as a consequence of this judgement, can play any games they chose to apart from the general apathetic nature of their functioning. If lives and limbs of the unsuspecting and the poor are lost in the bargain, so be it? Unconscionable It is unconscionable because in a welfare state -- despite privatisation, liberalisation etc, we have not yet lost that profile -- the people matter and that every individual regardless of whether he is paying for services or not, is a consumer of the state's programmes. If the argument that a free patient has no right is carried forward, it would amount to saying that only those who pay taxes have the rights, and by inference, non-tax-paying public have none. And in this country, hardly anyone pays all the tax dues; most under-report their earnings or fudge their accounts and pay less than they should. My argument is that even a non-tax paying citizen has equal rights. The taxes collected are meant for use of the people's welfare. They are not collected for deployment for the benefit of only the taxpayer. If Shetty could not pay, I am paying as a taxpayer. From those tax proceeds, the services are run by the state or the civic body. Therefore, to term him not a consumer is laughable. Equality This country believes all citizens are alike, entitled to equal rights, and Shetty, cannot be treated as second-class citizen. Had he travelled ticketless on a train, fallen off and had his leg amputated, one can understand that he was a trespasser illegally using the train and not entitled to compensation. Had the train been designed to carry the poor, then he would have a case. By stretching the argument, a person who is poor to afford legal fees, uses free legal aid as is available in this country, is not entitled for justice. Likewise, in the state or civic-run medical institutions, which is designed as a tool for performing set duties, cannot escape any responsibility saying he was not a patient paying for the services. He was taken in apparently in the full knowledge that he was to be treated free. So, why this discrimination? Time we changed this. Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based commentator