RIMS: A Temple of Healing or a Theatre of Tragedy? 

Death is inevitable, but at the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences, Imphal, it appears to have become a routine discharge note. Over the past few months, whispers of negligence have been echoing through its sterile corridors—whispers punctuated by grieving cries of families who came seeking life but went home with coffins. The most grotesque irony was the demise of a patient who came in for something as non-fatal as leg surgery. And just as the embers of public outrage began to cool, two more deaths—yesterday and today—have reignited the fire.
So, the million-dollar question: Who shoulders the blame? Is it the doctors—those sworn under the Hippocratic Oath, yet seemingly practicing the Hypocritic one—or the hapless patient who made the fatal error of trusting RIMS with their fragile heartbeat?
Yes, we hear about “official inquiries.” The hospital authority dutifully sets up committees each time a death makes it to the headlines. But these inquiries, much like the proverbial elephant’s pregnancy, take years to deliver nothing. Are they genuine attempts at accountability or merely soporific tactics designed to pacify enraged families until grief loses its voice?
Unlike the developed world, India still lacks an independent coroner system. Morbidity and Mortality audits—the global gold standard for accountability—are here treated as optional luxuries rather than mandatory duties. In such a system, negligence is less a breach and more an occupational hazard. Are we then to assume that interns and junior doctors are perfecting their craft on human subjects, while seniors conveniently wash their hands in the sterilized basin of institutional indifference?
One cannot ignore the administration either. Is it genuinely concerned about patient welfare, or is its attention perpetually riveted on tenders and recruitments—avenues where personal perks often trickle in—while patients, who offer no such dividends, are left to languish? And then there is the disturbing suspicion that some senior doctors have perfected a dual career—practicing at RIMS by day for prestige, and at their private clinics by evening for profit. In such a scenario, one cannot help but ask: are patients deliberately subjected to half-hearted care in public hospitals so that the “real treatment” can be sold across the street?
The grim suspicion, whispered in tea stalls and social media, is that patients at RIMS are being reduced to guinea pigs—fodder for experimentation, teaching tools for the fledgling, and case studies for conference papers. A chilling thought, but hardly far-fetched.
Solutions are not utopian, merely inconvenient for those profiting from the current rot. First, every hospital death must trigger a transparent, time-bound inquiry—conducted not by insiders polishing their own halos but by independent panels. Second, mandatory clinical audits and M&M reviews should be legislated into hospital practice. Third, accountability must move past lip service in press statements; those found negligent should face genuine consequences—ranging from suspension of license to removal from service. Fourth, the administration must prioritize competence over connections in recruitment.
Until then, dear citizens, entering RIMS may feel less like stepping into a hospital and more like rolling dice in a casino where the house—quite literally—always wins.