At first sight, the following four real incidents that happened in India seem unrelated to each other.
"Due to lack of oxygen supply, at least sixty infants allegedly die in a government hospital" - Gorakhpur, August 2017
"Treatment for Dengue infection costs Rs 15 Lakhs in a corporate hospital" - Gurugram, November 2017"I want to become a heart specialist and offer free treatment to poor people" announces Twelfth standard exam topper - Odisha, June 2019.
"Doctor brutally attacked and hospital vandalised by aggrieved relatives after patient in ICU dies"- Latur, July 2020
But the harsh reality is that they are very much inter-linked to one another. Somewhere between losing innocent children to lack of basic infrastructure, and shelling out huge sums in private medical behemoths, our healthcare system seems to have lost its way. Somewhere, between the transition of an exemplary student into an ethical doctor, to his killing by furious citizens, we have lost a noble soul. Who is at fault - the individual, the society or the system? This fictional story endeavours to identify the actual problems maligning our healthcare system.
The Phoenix Doctors is a medical drama based on multiple, real life incidents. Karthik and Meera, the main protagonists, are intelligent, meritorious and empathetic doctors. The story takes us through their gruelling days of medical education and later their tenures in an inadequately maintained government hospital and a private multi-specialty hospital run by an industrialist. Unable to bear the avarice of the hospital's administrators, they set out to start an affordable, high-quality healthcare initiative of their own. But do their noble intentions see the light of the day? How far would bureaucracy, red-tapism, and capitalism go to stymie their growth?
