The Ministry of Health is the agency of the Government that takes charge of the initial response to the white blindness epidemic. After going blind, the doctor calls the Ministry of Health and alerts its leadership to the situation. Although the Ministry is skeptical of the doctor’s claims at first, it soon begins taking extreme but futile measures to try and contain the epidemic. Ultimately, it throws the doctor in quarantine along with all the other blind internees, completely abandoning him even despite his service to the public good. The minister chooses the mental hospital as a quarantine site because this is least likely to anger his powerful friends, and he then switches his focus to distracting and manipulating the public while the virus takes its course.
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The Ministry of Health Character Timeline in Blindness
The timeline below shows where the character The Ministry of Health appears in Blindness. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3
...wife insists that the doctor eat breakfast. After the doctor finishes his meal, he calls the Ministry of Health and asks to speak with “someone in authority.” But the person on the other end...
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Three hours later, the doctor gets a call from the Ministry of Health , which asks for his files and tells him not to leave his house. After...
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Chapter 16
...inevitable mortality. When they arrive at the doctor’s office, they find that it’s ransacked—presumably by the Ministry of Health . The girl talks as though she is living in a dream. The doctor regrets...
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