Unanswered queries are quite possibly admissions of guilt. The management is very powerful and very wealthy. That probably is the reason for their lack of response. The chairman has publicly acknowledged paying money to different people in authority, even to the havildar! In fact his one major mistake, he says, is in not calling Mr. Uddhav Thackarey to inaugurate the hospital. Instead, he called the president of India (who probably was pretty unimportant in the whole scheme of things). He is correct. In India one should know whom to be a sycophant too.

Let me also clarify why I am against sevenhills. There is the personal reason and the public interest one. I mention the personal reason first but that is not what drives me now. But to say that the personal pain was insignificant would be deceptive. I got terminated from the hospital for a couple of e-mails I had written. The first e-mail was written out of desperation because that day there was a very heated argument between the then CEO and the consultants. The consultants were upset about several things.That night I wrote an e-mail to the Chairman with copies to the consultants asking why so many consultants and top managerial staff were leaving the hospital. Moreover, I asked why the agreement with the BMC had not been signed and implemented as yet. I received a letter from the Chairman the next day giving some vague explanation and also saying that since this e-mail had been made public I am being terminated from the post with immediate effect. That clearly came as a bolt from the blue! I was summoned by the General Manager and the CEO (who also resigned a couple of months later). The General Manager asked me to give a letter of resignation, which I refused. He even wanted me to sign some papers wherein I would take responsibility of whatever happened in the hospital during my tenure exonerating the hospital totally! That, I said, was totally unacceptable. So I was given the termination letter. I pleaded with the Chairman to take me back. Well, after several days of pleading, he did take me back after 2-3 weeks, without losing the opportunity to give me a piece of his mind and trying to show how nice and fair he was. I took all this meekly. I then was the good boy in the hospital! But a leopard cannot change its spots. The Chairman then had a stupid idea of opening satellite clinics in different parts of Mumbai like Borivili, Mira Road, etc. It was stupid because the hospital itself had not picked up. This view was shared by all the consultants. I pleaded with him not to send me to these clinics because I wanted to concentrate my efforts in Marol. After a couple of days, I wrote to all the consultants pleading with them to try and reason with the the chairman as a group because I felt that trying to do such a thing alone would be of no use. Unfortunately, this e-mail was intercepted by the Chairman and the next thing I knew I was forced to vacate my room and post as I had gone against certain unkown rules of the hospital. I was litteraly escorted out of the hospital by the hospital security. They had no decency to give me a show-cause notice nor was there any attempt to fulfill the terms of the contract I had signed on joining, that 3 months notice would be given from either side before parting ways and if this notice period could not be given, 3 months retainership had to be paid by the party involved. It was a very bleek period for me. I had to restart the practise I had given up 18 months back.. There was no vacancy at Holy Spirit hospital where I had worked in before joining sevenhills. It was an endless process of job searching and confusion and depression. And anger. What wrong did I do that I deserved such a raw deal? Do not people have the right to question policies in the interest of the organisation? But my family and friends stood by me and helped me through this period of confusion and self doubt. Now, nearly one year down the line I am stronger, not just in myself but also in my faith in God.

As I mentioned earlier, now it is the larger social need which drives me to make sure that justice is done. When the hospital first came up, I was excited that SevenHills would be a public-private-partnership, having 20% of its beds allotted to the poor at rates as those in Municipal hospitals. As a physician working in this part of mumbai, I have been witness to the extreme suffering the poor go through because of the lack of affordable health care. Cooper and Rajawadi hospitals are the closest facilities but they are in a pretty bad shape. Patients would go to KEM and Sion hospitals. I would see patients die becauseof a lack of medical facilities. Unfortunately, till date, sevenhills and the BMC have not agreed to the terms of operating the free beds. My personal feeling is that the hospital is tryng to delay the implementation of its contract with the BMC. The reasons for this I will detail later. But for how long can it delay?