Passionate About India

My brother-in-law and friend, Prashanto’s mother couldn’t make it, after the burn injuries she suffered during Diwali (refer to my December 13, 2012 editorial http://www.thesundayindian.com/en/story/how-patents-are-anti-poor-and-are-harming-essentials-like-healthcare-worldwide/44915/ ). At 74, her body gave up after a fight of more than 50 days. And it was a life well lived. Yes, we always have a slightly better view of life on hindsight. I got to think of three key things today that I want to share. The first being about the goodness of doctors. Yes, I still believe doctors in general have fallen down to almost being merchants of death (refer to one of my past editorials http://www.thesundayindian.com/en/story/run-the-merchants-of-death-are-angry/36061/ ) and I also have had pharmaceutical company heads telling me stories about the doctor junkets they propagate in the garb of ‘seminars’, about how crudely doctors behave after getting sloshed over drinks and how each one is there ...

Doctors are angry! Why? Aamir Khan has targeted them in two of his first four shows! And why not? After all, the show is called Satyamev Jayate! And the first and most important responsibility of a civilized society towards its citizens is that of giving them a good healthcare system (followed by education, employment and judiciary, in order to make a good democracy), that too in a country like India where an estimated 17% of the population die before the age of 40. The reality however is shockingly quite worse. The reality is that in this country, medicines for treatment of cancer patients – in one of the cases, 550,000 Morphine and 5,200,000 Morcontin tablets sent by the World Health Organization – that were supposed to be distributed free at all the hospitals in India, were dumped in the stores of hospitals beyond their expiry dates. These were costly medicines and Morphine is typically meant to relieve patients from intensive pain. It basically meant that in this particular case, p...