Healthy Profession Or Professional Health?

Ashish Mohapatra, an IFS officer of the 1988-batch of my cadre, was like a younger brother. He passed away on July 28, 2005, from cerebral malaria while he was Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), Keonjhar division. I was devastated. He was, not only, a brilliant and upright officer, but also, a strong advocate for the causes of the service. Like me, he was always an active member of the IFS association. At that point in time, I was Secretary of the Odisha unit of the IFS Association and he was the Joint Secretary. Therefore, we were in constant touch. Moreover, since Keonjhar was a tough division with a lot of iron ore mines in forest areas he spoke to me regularly, almost daily, on professional issues. His wife Geetanjali after completing her PhD had just joined a Management College as a teaching faculty at Bhubaneswar. Since the workload was heavy, Ashish toured a lot. Therefore, he strongly persuaded Geetanjali to take up the teaching assignment as he hardly remained at headquarters and had little time for family.

In the third week of July 2005, he started complaining of fever and body ache. “Why don’t you come to Bhubaneswar and get checked up?”, I remember telling him a couple of times. He downplayed the ailment as routine body pain due to hectic travel. He went to Sambalpur a few days before the fateful day and met his batchmate Debidutta Biswal, the DFO. Debi also strongly advised him to go for a health check-up immediately. Ashish, the workaholic that he was, kept dillydallying citing pending works in his division. However, on returning from Sambalpur, he came to Bhubaneswar and was admitted to a hospital. By that time, it was too late, he passed away the very next day.

Before we could recover from the untimely demise of Ashish, BLK Reddy, an IFS officer of the 1981-batch, passed away from a heart attack. I was posted as Conservator of Forests (CF), Bhubaneswar Circle, and he was posted as General Manager (GM), Odisha Forest Development Corporation (OFDC), Bhubaneswar. OFDC is the sole agency for trading timber in the state. Business is normally handled at the level of DFOs and Divisional Managers (DM). Those items which remain unresolved are normally sorted out in CF-GM coordination meetings. BLK and I held one such meeting, sometime, in October. After a few days, I got the news that he suffered a heart attack and has been admitted to a hospital. I met him in the ICU, where he was convalescing. He was pretty cheerful and jokingly enquired whether I had come with the minutes of the coordination meeting, for his signature. But within a few days, he developed complications due to an infection in the lungs. It got so complicated that on November 15, 2005, he was shifted to Delhi in an air ambulance. Unfortunately, he had multiple heart attacks while he was airborne from which he could not be revived by the doctors in Delhi. Besides being a bright officer, he was a very fit person. He played lawn tennis every day. In fact, the day he had a heart attack he was on his way to the tennis court.

Raja Reddy, an officer of 1984-batch, was a very vibrant person. He regularly represented Odisha in All India Forest Sports Meets in lawn tennis and on several occasions had won medals for the state. On June 17,  2010, when I along with some of my batchmates were undergoing Mid-Career Training, Phase-V in Vancouver, Canada, I was stunned to get an email that Raja had passed away due to cardiac arrest. He was posted as CF, Koraput Circle, and as was his regular routine, had gone to play tennis in the morning. After an exhaustive match, while he was resting beside the court, he felt a bit uncomfortable. He immediately drove down to the district hospital. But unfortunately, he passed away within hours. In retrospect, people felt had he not driven himself to the hospital he could have been saved.

These untimely deaths can probably be related to job-related stress and paucity of time for taking care of own health. That majority of officers have stress-related health issues like hypertension and high blood sugar cannot be a coincidence. This happening despite routine annual medical check-ups and everyone being so conscious of health issues is a major cause of concern. The death of Ashish could be blamed on the high job expectations. I remember, my father had serious aural issues in the 1970s. He was advised to undergo surgery involving very delicate procedures in both ears at a specialized institution in Chennai. The surgeon wanted to operate on one ear first and based on which, would have done the other. The operation was successful but he was advised bed rest for at least two months. But on June 25, 1975, a national emergency was declared and since he was holding an important position, Deputy Inspector General (DIG), Sambalpur Range, his leave application was rejected. As a result, the operation failed and he became deaf in his left ear. The surgeon didn’t want to go for an operation on the right ear at the risk of him becoming stone deaf. So, he had to manage with falling auditory faculty for the rest of his life and missed out on many career opportunities. Indeed, a heavy price to pay on the altar of the profession.

Health disorders have become a major issue in all walks of life, particularly, in high-strung jobs. Mental health is overwhelmingly becoming a serious concern. Only a few are lucky to be in a profession which is their passion, some adapt to make their profession their passion. But even in those cases, the targets are so high (many times self-imposed), or competition is so stiff and expectations are of such tall order that health and stress management are becoming more and more complex and its importance cannot be overstated.