A country of 1 Billion Doctors

Everyone has one or more native knowledge, this native knowledge is formed based on place/country we live. For example, Americans has native knowledge about cars. Canadians has native knowledge about ice hockey and so on. Like wise we Indians has native knowledge of medicines, this could be because before Brits came to our country, we were mostly self medicated or mom & pop traditional medicines.  Any ways in the field of medicine, we all have suggestions/advice to everybody for anything, anytime. For example, if some one says “i’m having headache” to 10 people, he/she will get 10 different opinions with 10 different solutions. Better not to talk about one’s own issues publically in India. Since we are all have some native knowledge about medicine with combination of emotional and sentimental, we all want to go see a patient who is either ICU or recovery room to express our opinions. This has to be stopped and crowed ICU and rooms are not good for patients and their loved ones. Here are the stories about my observation at Indian hospitals. 

Terror in ICU: A relative or friend in ICU means they are half dead in India. Most of the ICU cases are two wheeler’s (motor cycle, scooter etc) accidents, young guys, who are not wearing helmet hence heavy skull injury. It was sad to be in ICU at this young age and most of them make it and our doctors are really great on that. But the tension outside ICU is unimaginable and has to be stopped. When i start take mental notes, it was early morning 5.00AM, a family of mother, dad and sister waiting outside for their beloved son/brother who met an accident, they were crying all the time, as brother’s health start stabilizing dad started console them and sister’s husband also joined and they were under control. After some time, say 9.00AM people started coming. The dad was almost invisible with in the crowd, doctors also frustrated, it was almost 100+ people came for this single case. Some of them start asking question to dad, why you took him here? Here they are not good for skull injury? He got more panic, on other side ladies started circled to start cry. The sister and mother also vanished in crowd.  One question pop-up my mind, why this people came at 9.00AM, why they didn’t come as soon as accident happened? They took their own time to visit hospital, so they are not really coming for good purpose. I went to have a coffee and one of the guys who was with the crowd also at same coffee shop and he start speaking at mobile phone that “they still keeping oxygen mask so the case won’t survive”, like he is a doctor and knows all the internal medicines/procedures.  

Hats off to Doctors: It was great experience to me with our doctors at India, they are really great. What they have is 1947 outdated instruments but still they are managed to give world class treatment to their patients. I can see most of the doctors in India have dedication, hardworking and multi taskers. The whole medical industry revolving because of quality of our doctors. I think curriculum is the main one to produce this much quality doctors. 

Fees:  We have quality doctors and everything but medical affordability in India is really tough. I think more than 95% of Indian people can’t get quality treatment like their rich counterpart. The medical fees are very expensive in terms of average Indian’s earning power. I think most of the time there was no standard fees determination also. A blood test costs Rs 360.00 one day, very next day it can be Rs 460.00. I have no idea why this double standard. Most of the cases i met there were poor people, they want to some how afford this quality so that their beloved one once again talk and walk but the price they are paying for this is really sad, they almost sold all of their land, all gold, life saving and everything they own under sun. After treatment they have to start their life from scratch. A decease in India changed one’s life completely.  

Indian government should close all government aided hospitals and give subside to this private well managed hospitals or increase the government aided hospital’s quality. The politicians and educated people in India just forgetting their roots and becoming more selfish, they have to carry this baggage sooner rather than later. 


Comments

Anonymous said…
Interesting observations. In general people in India don't know where to draw the line with respect to interference in other people's affairs. Crowding in hospitals is a real problem. Crowding in rail stations and airports in this day when security concerns are high is another problem.

As for govt hospitals, you are right they can subsidize private hospitals instead of trying to run hospitals themselves and doing a shoddy job of it.
Thanks Sukumar. Yes..crowding is real problem. Indian govt simply wasting money to run their own hospitals.

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