Strategically Speaking: PSEUDO Healthcare in India

The prefix ‘Pseudo’ in the title serves two purposes here. First it is to take our attention towards the condition of healthcare in India which is often termed one of the best in the world by our leaders. Secondly when read like “‘PSEUDO’ healthcare in India” it means this post is not only about Indian healthcare but it has a political twist too. Obviously our medical facilities are not of good quality that is why Mrs Gandhi visits US every year for health checkups spending crores of taxpayer’s money. The irony is out of 65 years of independence congress was in power for more than 49 years headed by Gandhi family. Still can’t make a world class hospital? I wonder why. This post tries to explain how petty politics have so far reduced the quality of healthcare in India despite having largest number of doctors in the world. So if you hate politics go ahead and close this post, be happy and keep suffering helplessly ignoring the facts about administration and political class who in the first place are responsible for those sufferings.

Let me explain how politics have ruined our opportunity to be a medical superpower. World class healthcare demands four main things:

Doctors . (India has the largest population of doctors both here and abroad.)

Medical staff. ( India have the largest pool of youthful citizens who if trained skilfully can rise up to the occasion )

Infrastructure. ( India has largest population of Civil engineers, IT professionals and MBAs who if coordinated properly can easily create world class infrastructure)

Political will. ( The only thing India, the world’s LARGEST democracy doesn’t have in this field even after 65 years of independence)

So despite having everything in abundance why is Mrs Gandhi going to US for treatment? Why do film stars rush to Singapore for treatment? Why members of parliament and top beaurocrats spend large sum of taxpayer’s money for their treatments abroad?

Singapore is smaller than average Indian city so it is much easier to develop it. This might be an excuse to justify our weakness but what about US, Canada, China? All of them have one or more shortages of the above 4 points still why are they medical superpowers? Because the fourth point is the main point and should be kept at first necessity. Political will is what those countries have and we lack. They have health as one of their main priorities. Health checkups are compulsory in many of those countries, Doctors are regularly supervised, wrongdoers are punished, med schools are regulated efficiently and corruption is kept at minimum.

So coming directly to the fourth point, Health and Education are not even in the top 3 priorities in our budget. Instead MILITARY, INDUSTRY and AGRICULTURE are given highest shares of GDP spending. Whatever mere expenditure happens in education and health is further filtered into the pockets of officials at every level due to largely unearthed corruption in these two sectors. Finally 20 to 30 percent of the sanctioned money goes into ground work and for decades now healthcare is running like this.

Once I congratulated my 9^th grade English teacher after I saw in news that central budget has introduced a scheme to give laptops to all government high school teachers for better standards of teaching. He started laughing and I failed to understand why he was laughing after I Said ‘Sir now you will be able to refer to internet or power point presentations while teaching us’. So I asked him the reason for laughing and he explained ‘Kid you say they have promised a laptop? Just wait and watch it’s a matter of time we will witness for ourselves if we can even get the laptop’s outer skeleton!’ I understood that he was referring to governmental delays in India to carry on schemes which are targeted only for media as a poll gimmick but I still asked him why he says he won’t get the laptop and is not expecting even the laptop’s outer skin. He explained that the laptop will surely start its journey from New Delhi but it will deteriorate at every level. The central officials will keep the mother board, the state officials will keep the hard drive, the education board officials will take their share and finally we are not sure what the teacher will get actually at the end of this. Metaphorically he explained how money sanctioned to various schemes go into the pockets of beaurocrats and officers at each level. This is the primary reason why our healthcare and education sectors are in dilapidated state.

A recent report by an UK journal showed that in the last five years more than 1500 UK doctors were barred from practicing medicine due to the cases of medical negligence but strangely NOT A SINGLE INDIAN DOCTOR IS EVER BARRED FROM PRACTICING BY the Medical Council Of India who receive thousands of complaints on a daily basis. They temporarily suspended few doctors with serious charges like female foeticide but never have permanently barred any doctor. That’s really strange and any sane mind will be out of explanations for this. Either UK doctors are so bad, Indian doctors are so good OR the MCI doesn’t have proper powers like many other toothless Indian laws! Whatever it may be it is giving a free hand to people running malpractices in medicine (wrong to call them doctors). A report based on a survey in Delhi showed many practicing doctors there did not even know the spelling of Paracetamol still their complaint files are stashed untouched in MCI office. And innocent people flock their clinics daily unaware of the consequences. For these reasons an average middle class Indian can’t even think of going to govt. Hospitals. He would rather borrow money but will go to a private hospital with a good record for the sake of safety and better service to his family.

Government hospitals in India seem more like refugee camps with people all around doing all household chores in the hospital premises. The floors are an alternative to hospital bed (which are always in shortage be it Mumbai, Delhi or Kolkata). Injections, saline and medications are administered to the patient sitting on floor itself. Maternal and infant mortality is sky rocketing and what more can you expect if delivery takes place on floor. I wonder what would be the situation in the remote villages of eastern India. Irony is that homes and even small offices maintain more hygienic conditions than government hospitals. Patients and relatives make the hospital corridors their newly found homes as the treatment drags on for weeks. Doctors come once a day to give instructions to subordinates to perform all the functions of a doctor and then swiftly moves to his private clinic. In many cases drivers, cleaners and what not have been caught on cam administering injections to infants which in turn resulted in rise in stats of the IMR. Sigh! It is too much of the grim situation analysis right? But reality no matter how harsh should not be ignored.

Here are few photos in this regard :