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23 August 2024 at 9:59:04 pm

Fatal Negligence

Newborns dying in a fire inside a government hospital is a devastating indictment of a system that is supposed to protect its most vulnerable patients. The Amravati District Women’s Hospital tragedy, where a blaze killed three infants, joins a long list of preventable institutional failures. Thirty-nine babies were inside the three-compartment facility when the fire erupted after a ventilator in the neonatal unit caught fire. Thirty-six were eventually rescued. Parents and eyewitnesses have...

Fatal Negligence

Newborns dying in a fire inside a government hospital is a devastating indictment of a system that is supposed to protect its most vulnerable patients. The Amravati District Women’s Hospital tragedy, where a blaze killed three infants, joins a long list of preventable institutional failures. Thirty-nine babies were inside the three-compartment facility when the fire erupted after a ventilator in the neonatal unit caught fire. Thirty-six were eventually rescued. Parents and eyewitnesses have alleged that the fire alarms did not sound and the automatic sprinklers failed to activate even as the district administration has said the hospital underwent regular fire audits and had applied for this year’s audit. An audit is meaningful only if it establishes that equipment works when lives depend on it. Maharashtra has already witnessed the deadly consequences of fire-safety failures in public hospitals. In 2021, eleven Covid-19 patients died in a fire at the Ahmednagar district hospital even though a fire audit conducted months earlier had recommended a firefighting system. The Amravati tragedy demands more than the familiar ritual of a high-level inquiry, compensation and promises of “strictest action”. The announcement of ex gratia payments cannot compensate parents who have lost a child they had barely begun to know. The investigation must establish not merely what ignited the fire, but why it was allowed to become fatal. Was the ventilator properly maintained? Were electrical and medical devices routinely inspected? Did alarms function? Were sprinklers operational? Was the NICU appropriately located and equipped for evacuation? Were staff trained and drills conducted? And most importantly, who was responsible for ensuring that every safeguard worked? There is another troubling detail: the neonatal unit was reportedly housed on the third floor, rather than at ground level, and questions have arisen over whether the unit was part of the building’s original plan. The state has built an elaborate architecture of laws and child-protection standards which seldom matches the situation on ground. Whether in government hospitals, schools or anganwadis, safety has become a box to be ticked rather than a responsibility to be lived. The most vulnerable children are consequently left dependent not on systems, but on the vigilance and heroism of individual staff members. That is an appalling way to run the childcare infrastructure of one India’s most developed states. A NICU is perhaps the worst possible place for institutional complacency: its patients are immobile, medically dependent and extraordinarily vulnerable to smoke, heat and even brief disruption of life-support equipment. The government must ensure that the Amravati deaths do not become another entry in the grim ledger of hospital tragedies followed by inquiries, outrage and forgetting. The real test will be whether the state can prevent the next newborn from dying in a hospital that was supposed to save him.

Should You Prepay Your Home Loan?

For many families, a home loan is the biggest financial commitment of their lives. So, it is natural to think that the faster you repay it, the better it is. After all, becoming debt-free sounds emotionally satisfying and financially responsible.


But personal finance is not only about emotions. It is also about opportunity cost.


Cheap Money

A home loan is usually among the cheapest forms of borrowing available to an individual. In many cases, especially for younger borrowers with longer tenure loans, the interest rate tends to be in a moderate range and is often on a floating basis. In the long term, as the economy grows, interest rates eventually reduce. 


If your home loan is currently costing you around 7.5% to 9%, this rate of interest will eventually go down in the future. Importantly, your long-term investments can potentially grow at 10% to 15% if you build a good basket of stocks, mutual funds, and gold. Thus, aggressively prepaying the loan may not always be the smartest move. The money used to reduce a relatively low-cost loan could possibly work harder elsewhere - in equity mutual funds, hybrid funds, direct equities, and gold as part of a balanced portfolio.


The Mistake

This is where many people make mistakes. They become obsessed with closing the home loan quickly and end up diverting most of their surplus income towards prepayment. In the process, they ignore other equally important goals such as retirement, children’s education, children’s marriage, and vacations. Basically, a home is one financial goal, not the only financial goal.


So, should you prepay your home loan? Yes, you can. But do not overdo it.


Smarter Way

A practical way to handle this is to increase your loan repayment gradually rather than aggressively. For example, if your income rises by 10% this year, you may consider increasing your effective home loan outflow by a similar percentage. If your EMI is 20,000 and your salary rises from 1 lakh to 1.10 lakh per month, paying around 22,000 instead of 20,000 can be a sensible middle path. Similarly, if you receive a bonus, you may use a portion of it, perhaps one-third of it, for prepayment.


This method helps you reduce the burden gradually and in a staggered manner, while also creating wealth in parallel by increasing your monthly investments in other assets.


Dividing Income

A useful rule of thumb is to divide your income equally into three buckets - regular living expenses, loans and EMIs, and long-term investing for future goals. If too much of your money goes into home loan prepayment, your long-term wealth creation may suffer.


Remember, life will continue to demand money for many other important goals.


Compounding Work

So, do not chase home loan prepayment blindly. Build financial assets in parallel through smart investing, prepay moderately, and let compounding work in your favour.


(The author is a Chartered Accountant and CFA (USA). Financial Advisor. Views personal. He could be reached on 9833133605.)

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