The Anatomy of Inequality.

I didn’t come across this thought while reading a manifesto or watching some posh panel discussion. It came to me in the simplest, most insanely ridiculous way...by standing between two hospitals.

Literally adjacent to each other. Same road. Same air. Likely, they are even the same birds that are flying overhead. 🙆

On one side of the road 🛣️ a fancy glass hospital stands, a five-star resort more than a health centre. An illness here feels your wallet before taking your vitals 💳❤️. The parking lot? A luxury car lineup 🚗💸. Step inside, and there are machines that make espresso ☕️, air-conditioning colder than their souls, and nurses smile as if they were customer service agents 😷🙂..here patients aren’t just treated..they are pampered. 

Across the road? 🛣️ A government hospital..overcrowded, falling apart, and smelling like every Indian’s worst memory of a hospital visit. Rust on stretchers, files piled like lost hopes and a silence that says, “Don’t expect too much.” Here, the patient isn’t sick they are powerless. Dignity doesn’t walk these halls. It gave up..just like the system did.👾

That moment made me feel like I was standing between two Indias.... not metaphorically, literally.💬

Because here, in this beautiful democratic country of ours, health isn’t a right. It’s a transaction.💰💸

🏥 Health is a Business. Suffering is a Subsidy.

You don't get treated in India. You purchase treatment. And how nice your treatment is? Well, that depends on how fat your wallet is.💵

You can cut queues in government hospitals if you "know someone."🤷🏻‍♀️

You can pass away in an ambulance if the hospital discovers you are not "worth the bed."🚤

Government schemes read great on paper, but in practice, that's a different circus altogether. Ayushman Bharat patients get turned down by private hospitals not because doctors are cruel-hearted but because they haven't received any payments for months, sometimes even a year.⌛

Reality Check: 💥https://youtu.be/W00rdTa7Dc4?feature=shared

The Lallantop's viral video features a girl asking the doctor why Ayushman Card was rejected.😶And what did the doctor say? Brutally honest "Because hospitals aren't getting paid by the government." Simple. Ugly. True.

Meanwhile, India currently spends approximately 2% of its GDP on healthcare, much less than it require. But we do manage to find money for statues and large events.⭕

And don't even get me on COVID. While poor people were waiting in cremation queues with their deceased loved ones in body bags, some private hospitals were demanding lakhs for an oxygen bed,people were dying gasping. And on TV? Political leaders were gaslighting😶‍🌫

🌍 The Global Epidemic of Economic Privilege

This isn’t just our circus. The clowns are international.😶

USA: Pharma lobbies block insulin price caps. Even dying is expensive.🤷🏻‍♀️

UK: NHS ,once sacred is now on the chopping block, being fed to private contracts.💸

Africa: Millions in foreign health aid disappear before reaching clinics. Because corruption doesn’t need passports.🛂

Across the globe, healthcare doesn’t protect you. It invoices you.🚤

And no, this is not me being dramatic in a late-night rant. There is actual worldwide data supporting this insanity.

Fact-check:👉  Read this painfully candid article: https://inequality.org/article/keeping-wealthy-healthy-everyone-else-waiting/

Trust me, it’s not just India where survival is a luxury item. The disease is global, and the prescription is inequality.👈

📉 Budgets Are Love Letters, Just Not to You

Every year, governments release flashy budgets. They will say things like “fiscal prudence”, “nation-building” and “Atmanirbhar Bharat.” But when you open the fine print:

👉PUBLIC HEALTH = NEGLECTED

• India spends just about 1.5-2% of its GDP on public health one of the lowest in the world. Meanwhile, countries like the UK and Germany spend over 8%. What do we get? Hospitals running out of beds and medicines, and patients begging for care.

 👉EDUCATION = GASPING

• Half of government schools don’t even have proper toilets. Teachers are too few, and classrooms are overcrowded. Education? More like a slow disaster.

👉CORPORATE TAX = SLASHED

• Corporate tax cuts in the last few years have taken away over ₹4.5 lakh crore from government funds, money that should have gone to public health and welfare.

👉SUBSIDIES = SACRIFICED

• Subsidies for farmers and the poor are often delayed or denied, while the government happily spends over ₹20,000 crore on statues and fancy events.

👉STATUES AND PR EVENTS = FULLY FUNDED

• The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spent ₹1,754 crore on election or general propoganda in 2023-24.

💢This is not a budget. It’s a scam dressed up as a love letter, written by the rich, for the rich, while the rest of us suffer and struggle.

                                                                    

🚨 VIP Culture of Survival

💨Ministers fly abroad for medical checkups.

✈️ Celebrities get airlifted at the first symptom.

👤And common people? They die on roads waiting for someone to say, “Yes, we have a bed.”

In 2023, politicians spent over ₹600 crore on foreign medical checkups,your money going to their comfort, while millions wait for care here.💁

More than 75% of hospitals don’t have enough doctors and nurses. Over half of rural health centers don’t have basic medicines, equipment, or even electricity.💥

Ambulances are a luxury. Many poor families pay ₹2,000 to ₹5,000 just to get a ride to the hospital,money most can’t afford.👵

Meanwhile, common people die waiting on roads, in ambulances, and hospital corridors. Broken promises and rusted stretchers are all we get.💢

This isn’t a failing system. It’s a system made to fail you.😕

💥When Care becomes a Calculation of Patience vs. Privilege

Doctors in India don’t just treat patients ,they treat a system that's already in critical condition. Becoming a doctor here isn’t about healing first, it’s about surviving the chaos and still choosing to stay.

Let’s diagnose the disease beneath the white coat:

🧾 Wages?

Protests across states demanding fair pay , not for luxury, but for basics. Because apparently, saving lives is “noble,” but paying those who do it is optional.

⏰ Working Hours?

36-hour shifts are romanticized. Rest is a myth, and burnout is served with chai. You aren’t tired, you are just not “dedicated enough,” they say.

🧯 Safety?

In 2024, a 31-year-old female doctor from RG Kar Medical College, Kolkata, was raped inside the hospital.Her workplace turned crime scene.

This is the same system where junior doctors were assaulted in 2019 in NRS hospital by a mob over 200 people.

The message? Heal, but don’t complain. Get hit, but stay humble. Because even in danger, you are expected to stay “professional.”

🏚️ Rural Postings?

After years of brutal study, they are posted in areas with no electricity, no equipment, and no backup. Sorry, but doctors didn’t sign up to be sacrificial offerings to a broken system. Build the roads, fix the infrastructure , don’t guilt-trip the people trying to hold it all together.

💉 Not Just Doctors:

Nurses, allied health workers, community health workers ,the unsung warriors , fight their own battles for survival and dignity. Low wages, long hours, zero job security, and disrespect from patients and system alike. If doctors are the heart, these workers are the veins and arteries , without them, the whole body collapses. Yet their struggles barely make headlines👎

🧠 So What Now? Just Suffer?

Not quite.🙊

Suffering in silence has already been normalised enough  and we have played polite for too long while policies were being auctioned off.🙇

But here’s the thing: politics may be dirty, but public pressure is detergent.💢

Change won’t happen overnight. But it won't happen at all if we stay asleep.😴

✅ What We Can Do (Beyond Rage)

🗳️  Vote With Eyes Open, Not Wallets Closed

Don't fall for freebie jingles or hollow slogans.

Ask what’s in the manifesto for public health, education, and transparency.

They are not doing you a favour by building a hospital ,it’s your tax money. 

🧠 Educate Yourself, Then Outrage

Learn how budgets, electoral bonds, and health schemes really work.

Question the narrative. Reject performative empathy.

Spread verified facts, not forwarded fiction

💻 Support Independent Media

Want to separate real journalists from the circus clowns? Stop scrolling mindlessly and read my post:BREAKING NEWS AND BROKEN ETHICS

Truth doesn’t scream for attention , it’s buried under layers of noise, spin, and PR stunts. Choosing to listen is a radical act.

Back the brave who dig deeper, or keep swallowing the lies served as news. Your call.

💬 Call Out the VIP Obsession

Publicly question why privilege = better treatment.

Say it in your college groups, your office spaces, your dinner tables.

Disrupt comfort zones. That’s where change begins.

🧾  Demand Public Infrastructure That Serves All

Push for healthcare audits.

Demand accountability from your MPs and MLAs.

Ask like it’s your money...because it is.

🧍‍♀️Organise, Don’t Just Scroll and Swear

Petitions, RTIs, PILs... these aren't just buzzwords. They are tools.

Collaborate with NGOs, student unions, civic groups.

You don’t need to do everything  but start something.

🤝 Bring Empathy Back Into Politics

Recognize your privilege. Amplify those unheard.

A just system begins not with rage  but with realisation.

And then? With rebellion.

 Because when we stop expecting healthcare, education, and justice as luxuries, and start demanding them as non-negotiables, that’s when politics starts to fear people again  not just money.

 🙌Respect Health Workers, Don’t Blame Them

Healthcare workers aren’t rude. They are burned out. That junior doctor snapping at you? Probably hasn’t slept in two days. That nurse who seemed distracted? Likely handling three departments at once.

They are underpaid, overworked, and still showing up. Don’t direct your anger at them. Direct it at the system that left them hanging.

They need your respect. And the government needs your questions.

☝So here is a fun little riddle for both billionaires and beggars:-

💥When a virus walks in, does it check your income before your pulse?
           When breath runs out, does your net worth negotiate with death?

💥So I ask,when did we decide that a ventilator should cost more than a human life?
        When did we start accepting that some hearts deserve CPR and others just condolences?

- Sameeksha, just another voice in the ICU of a nation where privilege breathes, and the poor wait their turn to stop.