Medical colleges in the state are hospitals where thousands of patients are treated at a nominal cost. In fact, poor people get better treatment here than what they get in big private hospitals. However, due to the problems of the government system and management, the patients who come to the medical college hospitals have to endure many difficulties. Due to the high volume of patients, even emergency surgeries are delayed for weeks. Therefore, the middle class avoid medical college hospitals as much as possible. There is no shortage of doctors and other staff who treat patients very well, but a small percentage of care workers who treat patients with barbarity give the institutions a bad name as a whole. The most recent of these is the incident where a doctor damaged a machine to get a commission.

A doctor damaged a machine worth Rs 20 lakh bought for performing keyhole surgery on prostate-related diseases at Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital. This shocking information is contained in the report prepared by the superintendent of the hospital. It is alleged that this nefarious act was to extort the purchase commission. Or maybe it was done to help private hospitals. Anyway, this doctor's eye is only on the money, and not on patients or diseases. The superintendent conducted an investigation into the incident after Kerala Kaumudi reported that surgeries were halted due to the machine breakdown. This is not the first time such an incident has happened in the urology department. If a machine is damaged, a new one will be purchased and then a purchase commission will be received. Last January too, surgeries were halted due to machine failure. The experts of the company that manufactured the machine had inspected it when it got damaged the first time and reported that the machine was damaged intentionally. Had the health department officials intervened, investigated, found the culprits and punished them back then, this offence would not have been repeated. Not only was that not done, the hospital development committee decided to buy a new machine from another company to get the commission. This new machine is the one that was damaged on purpose within six months of purchase. Parts including the camera and monitor were destroyed. It will cost five lakh rupees to repair it. The problems are aggravated by the arguments among the doctors in the urology department of the medical college hospital.

The reason for the recurrence of such incidents is the incompetence of the ones in power. The doctor who was found to have tampered with the machine should be immediately dismissed from service and the government should ask the Medical Council of India to cancel his registration. Medical colleges and hospitals will be better only if such people are thrown out.