A gentleman Prime Minister

Just two days ago I had given my views on three Prime Ministers of India whom admire greatly and consider as honest.
Further proof of this is given, if it is required, after all these years of knowing him through the media, by his exemplary behaviour at AIIMS.
He left instructions that AIIMS should function normally like any other day and the general public should not be inconvenienced.
His decision to have his second bypass done in India is also worth noting. He was advised by many peple to go abroad for this operation as it is considered risky.However, he decided to put his faith in the hands of Indian doctors led by DR. Ramakanta Panda. This is so different from the behaviour of our marxist ex-chief minister who used to go every year to London for his treatment.
We never came to know what ailment he suffered.
A big salute to Dr. Manmohan Singh.
I would also like to thank Sonia Gandhi who had the foresight to chose him as her PM when she could have easily ensconced herself in the chair.
I wish him a long life and another innings as the PM of India, after the next elections.

VIP or not, patients get treatment.
From "The Telegraph"

New Delhi, Jan. 24: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and AIIMS authorities have ensured that his treatment would not inconvenience thousands of Indians for whom the hospital equals hope.

All arms of AIIMS worked exactly like any other day as patients from across the country thronged the corridors of different departments, seeking out doctors and receiving treatment.

Security personnel remained unobtrusive — the gun-wielding officers were confined to the first floor of the red-walled cardiothoracic centre (CTC) where Singh was admitted initially before being taken to the fourth-floor operation theatre.

The Prime Minister, together with AIIMS, showed the country used to being shoved off roads at the sight of a red beacon that VVIPs need not make their presence a nuisance for ordinary citizens.

Sources told The Telegraph that there were “specific instructions from the Prime Minister’s Office” that no inconvenience was to be caused to patients because of Singh’s stay at the hospital. VVIP visitors were also barred.

The institute has a standard VVIP protocol which, the sources said, kicked in the moment AIIMS received instructions from the PMO allowing the hospital to continue operations as normal.

The AIIMS protocol specifically involves sanitising just the floor of the building in which the VVIP is undergoing treatment, an official said. The lift in the building is made dysfunctional but operations elsewhere are expected to continue unhindered. However, if the government had sought more restrictions for laying a thicker security blanket, the hospital would have had little option but to fall in line, the sources said, pointing out that the clarification from the PMO removed any doubt.

Six SUVs for ferrying security officers guarding the Prime Minister marked their presence immediately outside the CTC. But anyone could enter the building and access all but the first floor with no questions asked after passing through a metal-detector check.

On the first floor, too, patients with appointments with doctors were allowed — they had to show two tall SPG men guarding the stairwell a special pass handed out to them by hospital authorities.

Almost a thousand policemen and Special Protection Group personnel were on duty in shifts — but most of them were in plainclothes.

Businessman Tarunesh Mishra, who brings his 12-year-old daughter, a leukaemia patient, every fortnight to AIIMS for blood transfusion, said he had expected a near shutdown at the institute today.

“I was apprehensive about coming today,” said Mishra, who had to return without help two years ago when the usually crowded AIIMS was effectively closed after doctors went on strike against reservations in education.

Rickshaw-puller Gajendra Singh didn’t even know he was sharing patient status at AIIMS with his Prime Minister. “What are you talking about? The Prime Minister is here? How come there’s no tamasha (ruckus),” asked the 53-year-old cataract patient, firing the questions in quick succession as he waited for his turn at the AIIMS Out Patient Department.

Barely a hundred metres from where the Prime Minister’s surgery was on, in the AIIMS auditorium, the Association of Surgeons in India (ASI) started a conference on complications in surgery. Dozens of participants registered at a counter, sipping coffee and cracking jokes.

It helped that AIIMS is more experienced than any other healthcare facility in India at handling VVIP patients.

Not a week passes without a cabinet minister or some other VVIP coming to AIIMS for treatment, an official said. Education minister Arjun Singh routinely goes to AIIMS.