We can’t breathe

We are physiotherapists, and all we have seen is humiliation from government heads. They booed us from decades and we bowed to their hegemony right from the scratch. We oppose them for their denial in recruitment process but they ignore us. We challenge them, they neglect us. Their acts of sheer injustice dragged us to the back foot. We equip ourselves with deep knowledge and defined skill.  We don’t even call it a mix of hope and despair, we instead find ourselves in the tunnel of absolute darkness.

We are not scapegoats, however, we know the depth of our profession. To their knowledge, we have dissected valves of heart and even palpated corpus callosum. But alas! We have been pushed to a broken building of an ancient epoch. We are medical professionals and are a part of the system. We demand respect.

WHO WE ARE?

We are a clan of troops ready to fight in times of war, especially during these tiring times of dreadful Pandemic.

For testimonials we instil breathes in one’s life and maneuver percussion, vibration with healing hands. We maintain the  ventilation coefficient of lungs and thus make patients breathe. To employ the best indicative methods to safeguard an ICU patient we focus on intensity, frequency, time and rate of perceived exertion throughout the treatment protocol.

It’s heartening to see smiling faces of patients but are equally hurtful given the callous attitude of administration.

We are better in chest rehabilitation- which is an essential component for recovery in covid patients- but this has either been neglected or mostly handed over to quacks. In the midst of assisting others to upscale and maintain the oxygen saturation, it’s very sad to say that “we can’t breathe” – professionally.

Physiotherapists outside India are inducted, and respected in medical team and are thus a part of important decision-making bodies. Our professional ethics and norms are valued.

I wonder seeing major chunk of Indian Physios qualifying toughest International license exams worldwide. The apt skill and deep knowledge enables us to sail through. We are able professionals and can work in any environment.

WHY ARE WE ANGRY?

When you are hungry and do not eat anything, your brain gets irritated and you become angry. This is what has happened to physiotherapists in India in general and to J&K Physios in particular. More than half a decade ago, government had conducted written exam for physiotherapists for district posts in J&K. Candidates were shortlisted, interviewed and selected and guess what – the posts have not yet been filled. Candidates knocked the doors of the government institutions but to no avail. None suffered but the candidates, now over age.

I also had a chance of appearing in one of the job entrance exams recently. Government had advertised three open merit posts after a gap of five years. I failed to find the ratio given the number of candidates applied. You can’t behave like a kid when you see hundreds of graduates passing every year and notify only three open merit jobs in your Premier institute. This causes anger among the masses. If this is not a blot in the name of recruitment then what else is?

Very recently, I came to know about a single vacancy being created in a prestigious government hospital in Jammu for open merit candidates. Neither did I apply nor did my friends. Not because we lacked ability but because we did not like insult to our profession.

We have tabled many files in government departments but none received a just reward. Our demands have been turned down. We wonder where to go now. Whom to speak. Whom to meet. The trust has been broken. The heads have been a kind of autocratic. The impulsive attitude never harbours good relationships.

Considering the current attitude of  government authorities towards our profession, we fear professional death. The government needs to revolutionise health policy to deliver in a more proficient way. There must be legal rights for every healthcare worker. The immediate step administration can take is to engage jobless physiotherapists in different hospitals and health care facilities to contain the spread of corona virus. The sooner they realise, the better.

Author is from S K Pora, Budgam and works as a physiotherapist at a leading football club of J&K.