The Chairman would not meet with the consultant doctors for months on end after the hospital was inaugurated on July 4th 2010. Meanwhile the doctors were a worried lot because there were numerous adverse reports of the hospital in the media. One of the first consultants to leave was a well known Rheumatologist. I was very keen that he did not leave because he was good in his work and an extremely decent person. But he told me that he had tried to meet the Chairman 5 times and each time he was denied permission. He also told me that he did not join the hospital to enter details into computers but rather to treat patients. His only request was that he be allowed to leave a little early as he lived quite a distance away. That was a reasonable request because there are rarely any emergencies in this field which a physician cannot handle in his absence. After that more than 50 consultant doctors have left or been forced to leave.
People have told me that the land in which the hospital has been built is ’’cursed’’. They say that no enterprise in that land has done well. Actually that land belonged to the poor East Indians living in Marol village. It was a paddy field. The Govt. acquired it from the villagers and paid a pittance for it. And now seven hills is occupying it and trying to make a profit out of it. It is unlikely they will succeed if they do not give back to the people what was originally theirs. It reminds me of a saying by Jomo Kenyatta who is considered to be the father of African Nationalism. I do not remember the exact words but they were something like this: The white men came to Africa and when they came they did so in peace. There were also missionaries with them. At that time the land was ours and the Bible was theirs. They taught us to pray with our eyes closed and when we opened our eyes, the land was theirs and the Bible was ours!
