Last week, the tale emerged of ways a ‘hit-and-run’ street twist of fate sufferer used to be refused emergency care by means of the Ridge, Police and Korle Bu hospitals for with regards to 3 hours earlier than he died.

Somehow, the tragic tale struggled to hog the limelight of the media house, in all probability since the factor of cocoa manufacturer costs, with all its political connotations and shouting suits, looked as if it would occupy delight of position and would now not budge from the foremost headlines.

Of direction, there have been some howls and screams of indignation over this incident and the state of our well being care, with Mr Bernard Avle of Channel One TV significantly main the rate within the media, however differently, it appeared to be simply any other sordid bankruptcy within the weary saga of the state of our well being care.
Pulling ‘protocol’ strings

As I digested the sorrowful tale of the younger guy’s demise and imagined what he should have long past via, it struck me that if he, or his circle of relatives, knew somebody who knew somebody somewhat top up in any of those 3 hospitals, the vital strings would had been pulled with alacrity and in some way there would had been a mad scrambling for a mattress for him and he would have lived.

I’ve noticed it occur on quite a lot of events.

Among the numerous angles to this tale, it’s simple that over time, the standard of products and services from our public establishments has deteriorated.

What we have now euphemistically termed as ‘protocol’ is solely a mechanism for searching for to circumvent weakened and corrupted methods.

It isn’t even with reference to paying bribes to get issues accomplished, however falling on contacts to smoothen and expedite issues.

It has turn out to be somewhat same old in alumni, church-based and different WhatsApp teams for other people to investigate nearly each day whether or not anyone is aware of any individual running in a selected public establishment.

Invariably, it’s to safe lend a hand with more than a few products and services – getting a switch, clearing items on the port, getting a faculty position, securing a public modernization activity, facilitating a easy procedure in a central authority ministry or an company, or getting additional consideration for a relative on admission, amongst many others.

To this extent, it has turn out to be nearly obligatory and it seems that good to expand and maintain a community of contacts in the proper puts.

I do know a dad or mum who as soon as swore he used to be prepared to pay no matter it took to get his son into probably the most most sensible senior top faculties on this nation as a result of he sought after the kid to have the proper classmates within the puts that mattered to be able to make his existence smoother, although the kid’s grades had been lower than deserving of the varsity.

Once upon a time, the one other people one wanted on velocity dial had been one’s legal professional, pastor and private physician.

Today, along with those, figuring out a police officer or somebody who is aware of one – even a junior one – turns out to be useful within the tournament one wishes lend a hand to get a relative out of a sticky scenario with the legislation when arrested, such because the differently regimen procedure of having police enquiry bail.
Weakening public establishments

The inclination by means of the ones with the manner to seek out non-public answers to public issues manifests itself in different fascinating techniques.

Unstable energy? Buy a generator. Taps now not working? Dig a borehole for your yard. Derelict public hospitals?

Sign up with a swanky non-public medical institution.

Poor public faculties? Get your kid into any of the luxury native non-public faculties, or higher nonetheless, send them in a foreign country. Bad roads?

Get a four-wheel pressure automobile to take in the shocks, or higher nonetheless, fly if imaginable.

High crime, noise air pollution and concrete decay? Gated communities.

The record is going on and on.

This phenomenon is an immediate results of a weakening of our public establishments which can be accountable for those products and services.

Those who would not have the proper contacts or, in some circumstances, the monetary muscle to navigate the virtually impenetrable webs that those public establishments have turn out to be are left to their destiny, helplessly gazing from the sidelines, as should had been the case with the unlucky twist of fate sufferer closing week.

It has turn out to be a query of the jungle rule of survival of the fittest, or ‘each for himself, God, for us all.’

Of direction, in a dysfunctional public modernization, it is rather rational to fall again on some ‘wings’ to fly round quicker and get issues accomplished if one has the proper community and/or sources.

It is, subsequently, unreasonable to put blame on the door of those that get so pissed off by means of the gadget that it’s nearly sinful to not search some lend a hand to expedite issues.
Interconnected society

No society can prosper at the wings of jungle regulations.

Whether vulnerable or sturdy, we’re all interconnected come what may, thank God.

When a store construction collapses since the pissed off proprietor needed to reduce corners to acquire construction allows because of the hopelessly inefficient paperwork concerned, it will entice, injure and even kill the consumer who has discovered all of the non-public answers to his street, water, electrical energy and healthcare demanding situations.

When the wealthy, tough guy using a ways out of the city suffers a middle assault on the wheel, the one to be had medical institution within reach at that an important, subject matter time is also the poorly resourced public district medical institution, as a result of there will probably be no time to ferry him to his posh non-public medical institution many miles away or airlift him in a foreign country.

A gated group with non-public safety protects in opposition to burglaries and noise air pollution, however past the gates, one is as at risk of crime and noise air pollution simply as everybody else.

Everything leads again to one thing.

I’ve at all times maintained the view that the skilled, skilled, financially safe, and well-placed categories in society (what some name the center categories) are perfect situated to agitate for and pressure trade in society.

Because of the immense energy they wield because of their stature, and so they can’t be fobbed off simply, they may be able to make politicians sit down up and do the considered necessary.

When they keep away from the fray and use their immense clout to seek out their very own non-public answers to public issues via their contacts and their sources, after which smugly pull up the drawbridge, it best lulls them right into a false sense of safety, as a result of in essence, they truly are as prone as everybody else in lots of alternative ways.

What we can not have enough money is to stay going the way in which we’re, as a result of in the end the gadget will grind to a halt and devour us all when just a few can get issues looked after out, and everybody else must glance on helplessly.

Extreme deprivation may end up in rebellion.

As the 18th-century French thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau is alleged to have declared, ‘when the poor have nothing left to eat, they will eat the rich.’

Our public establishments desperately want reform, and we can not depart all of it to the political magnificence.

Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng.
Email: rodboat@yahoo.com

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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by means of Readers and Contributors in this platform don’t essentially constitute the perspectives or coverage of Multimedia Group Limited.