After 57 years of independence Indian had produced 1000s of new doctors and health facilities all over India. India is able to eradicate lot of disease and gain knowledge in cheap cure.
But in modern time there is lack of awareness towards disease and patients are wide spread. Health industry is dominated by greedy citizens and business houses.
I have started this thread to collect news and discussion on ills of Health Industry in India.
Even the policemen who arrived there supposedly on the call of duty turned a blind eye.
According to the victim, an overspeeding Tata Sumo, which he thinks is another call centre vehicle, dashed onto his two-wheeler from behind while he was near Nimhans at around 1 a.m. on Sunday.
ââI just flew and crash-landed on the footpath. By that time, the Sumo had sped away,ââ he told this websiteâs newspaper.
He sustained severe injuries on his right leg and wounded his left knee and left hand. ââMy mobile had run out of charge, so I could not contact anybody. I was lying on the road with a profusely bleeding leg. Though I shouted and tried to stop each vehicle that passed by, none stopped,ââ he recollected.
ââThen a Hoysala (police patrol jeep) stopped. The policeman inside told the driver in foul language to ignore me thinking that I was drunk. But the driver came out and said he would send an autorickshaw in two minutes. But nobody turned up,ââ he said.
However, there was still light at the end of the tunnel. Nazir, an autorickshaw driver and his friend took the victim to Nimhans. His plight did not end there. <b>The doctors working in the Emergency refused to treat him as it was not a neuro case</b>.
ââNazir Bhai had to threaten them saying he would call the DCP to make them at least dress my wound. The way they did it was even more painful,ââ he said.
The victim was later admitted to the Sagar Apollo Hospital where he underwent an operation on Monday.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>Government approves aid to upgrade highway hospitals</b>:<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->[India News]: New Delhi, Jan 4 : The government Tuesday decided to provide financial assistance to upgrade emergency medical facilities in hospitals located on national highways across the country.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved release of funds for modernising hospital facilities under a centrally sponsored scheme, which would have an outlay of Rs.1.1 billion, during the 10th five-year plan ending in 2007.
Each government hospital located on national highways would receive a grant of up to Rs.15 million for upgrading facilities.
The scheme is intended to equip hospitals with all facilities to treat accident victims so that they need not be transferred to city hospitals for treatment.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>Government clears rural health scheme</b>: <!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The government will initiate negotiations with international funding agencies like the World Bank and the DFID (Department for International Development) for credit and grants-in-aid to supplement resources for the NRHM.
It plans to seek Rs.15 billion ($350 million) from the World Bank and Rs.21 billion from DFID.
The cabinet also approved rationalising the funds and personnel of the departments of health and family welfare to effectively implement the NRHM.
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<b>India's eunuchs want respect in battle to stem AIDS spread</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The eunuchs say they are women -- a cause of much of the friction with the public and officialdom as they sit in the women's section of segregated buses and insist on applications for work or government programs to be called female.
"We know how to use condoms, it's the men who don't know," one eunuch at the meeting said.
There are sharp divisions among eunuchs -- "double deckers" who have sex both ways, "panthis" who are givers and "number nines" who are mainly cross dressers.
Many of them ply truck stops or work at hamams (bath houses) leading to concern that HIV infection can spread rapidly among their highly mobile clients.
Entering the eunuch world is part of an elaborate ritual of acceptance into small communities. Not all of the men are emasculated, though many just cite the cost of the operation as the prime barrier.
Kothi eunuchs, like women sex workers, earn about 300 rupees (seven dollars) on a good day of several clients.
Because of the low wages, many emasculated eunuchs choose a crude tribal ceremony that can lead to infection -- tieing their testicles for 24 hours and then cutting them off and cauterizing the bleeding. This costs 3,000 to 5,000 rupees (70 to 115 dollars), Alexander said.
At the higher end are operations performed by a local medical practitioner who may use antibiotics at around 10,000 rupees (230 dollars) and then sculpting by a professional doctor which can cost 60,000 rupees (1,400 dollars).
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<b>India Alters Law on Drug Patent</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->India, a major source of inexpensive AIDS drugs, passed a new patent law yesterday that groups providing drugs to the world's poorest patients fear will choke off their supply of new treatments.
The new law, amending India's 1970 Patent Act, affects everything from electronics to software to medicines, and has been expected for years as<b> a condition for India to join the World Trade Organization.</b>
But because millions of poor people in India and elsewhere - including by some estimates half the AIDS patients in the Third World - rely on India's generic drug industry, lobbyists for multinational drug companies as well as activists fighting for cheap drugs had descended on New Delhi to try to influence the outcome.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In Africa, exports by Indian companies, especially Cipla and Ranbaxy Laboratories, helped drive the annual price of antiretroviral treatment down from $15,000 per patient a decade ago to about $200 now. They also simplified therapy by putting three AIDS drugs in one pill. <b>Dr. Yusuf Hamied, Cipla's chairman, called the new law "a very sad day for India."</b>
But some other Indian drug makers, along with multinational companies, praised it. The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, a Geneva-based lobbying group, called the law "a significant step" that would let India "take a leading role in global pharmaceutical research and development."
<b>S. Ramakrishna, chief lobbyist for Pfizer India</b>, a subsidiary of the world's largest drug maker, said the bill's passage abandoned "the utopian concept that every invention should be as free as air or water," according to The International Herald Tribune.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Surprising no protest from Roys,Chatterji, Pathkar and others.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Outstanding medicare </b>
Rainer Kellers / New Delhi
IT IS the best medical institute in India, I was told. So I was quite curious to see the famous All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). Would it look like any of the big hospitals I visited in Germany?
My first impression: My God, this hospital is really big. In fact, it comprises not only one big building but is made up of several ones. It takes me and my colleague, whom I accompany, a while to reach the main entrance. Here, a lot of activity is taking place: There is a steady stream of people heading for the entrance; some of them are visible ill or injured; others seem to be visitors' ambulances are coming in and out.
Next to the main gate there is a large queue of people waiting in front of the reception area. It is evident, that the hospital is very popular. Not only, but especially with the underprivileged people. They come to AIIMS, I am told, because the treatment is one of the best, at the same time affordable. Some of them are coming from other cities, even from foreign countries. However, the other side of the coin is: It is indeed crowded. I can clearly see that without even entering the building. And it becomes even more obvious as we go inside.
We came to AIIMS because my colleague had an appointment with one of the doctors. As soon as we enter, we get lost in the building. We ask one security officer. But he has never heard the name of this doctor nor can he tell us the way to his department. There are just too many of them. We try to find the way ourselves. And suddenly we pass through the emergency area. Here, the impressions are overwhelming. Injured patients are everywhere; I can see doctors treating patients, people waiting for treatment; patients with newly fixed plasters; people in pain and ones with hope on their faces.
Again, it is very crowded. But who would be surprised? The AIIMS is catering to 1,5 million outpatients and 80,000 inpatients every year. Impressive figures. Even the biggest hospitals in Germany can't compete with these numbers. Although it sometimes is comparably crowded. I remember one instance in the city of Cologne, which has a well known hospital linked to the university. I was waiting there for nearly six hours, only to be treated by a stressed doctor for five minutes. On the other hand - it was the right treatment. Sometimes it's worth to wait longer.
In the end, after a long quest through the corridors and floors of the hospital, we reach the office of the doctor. My colleague makes her interview and as they speak about new achievements on the field of researching, I realise, that it's not only medical care that makes AIIMS outstanding, but the research too
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>'Delhi full of quacks' </b>
Rajeev R Roy / New Delhi
A Delhi Government survey has revealed that "about 60 per cent medical practioners don't have proper qualification." "They fall in the category of quacks," a chief medical officer (CMO) involved in the survey said. <!--emo&:o--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ohmy.gif' /><!--endemo-->
The Government has pressed all CMOs into collecting details about such self-styled doctors. "Initial findings suggest that the number of quacks can cross 40,000 in the Capital. It's a serious issue and we are making efforts to deal with it effectively," he added.
The survey is being conducted under the name "Existing Health Facilities in Delhi," with special emphasis on the number of persons practicing medicines in the city. They have been put into four categories: Qualified doctors practicing without registration, unqualified practioners, registered qualified practioners and qualified doctors not practicing.
As per Government norms, practioners have to register themselves with the agency concerned before they begin practicing in the Capital. For instance, a person practicing modern medicine has to be registered with the Delhi Medical Council (DMC). Or if he is practicing Ayurveda, he has to be registered with the Ayurvedic Board.
"If the survey is carried out effectively, the figure of 40,000 quacks will pale into insignificance <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not surprised but percentage is too high. Among 40% how many seriously see patients is another mystery?
<b>UK rule model for doctors</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->UK rule model for doctors
R. VENKATARAMAN
New Delhi, Aug. 5: A doctor cannot be sent to jail just because he failed to show the highest professional skill. But he can be if he fails to do what any âordinarily prudent and reasonableâ doctor would have done.
Holding up this judgment of a British court (Bolamâs case, 1957) as the standard, the Supreme Court today laid down, for the first time in India, a clear criterion to decide criminal negligence by a physician or surgeon.
âIt is not possible for every professional to possess the highest level of expertise or skills in that branch which he practisesâ¦. That cannot be made the basis or the yardstick,â a three-judge bench of Chief Justice R.C. Lahoti and Justices G.P. Mathur and P.K. Balasubramanyan said.
âIt must be shown that the accused did something or failed to do something which, in the given facts and circumstances, no medical professional in his ordinary senses and prudence would have done or failed to do.
âHence, the test for determining medical negligence as laid down in the UKâs Bolamâs case holds good in its applicability in India.â<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why to refer British case in free India?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In a case against a certain Dr Suresh Gupta, a division bench had ruled that the alleged negligence in criminal cases â as opposed to civil negligence cases where a doctor may be asked to pay compensation but cannot be jailed â must be âgrossâ.
But another division bench disagreed on the ground that the IPC provisions dealing with criminal negligence didnât contain the word âgrossâ.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Its very difficult to get judgement against Doctors in India.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Is Health Ministry jumping the gun to declare India polio-free?</b>
Pioneer News Service / New Delhi
Is the battle against polio won? The Health Ministry is optimistic. But independent experts are not sure. The Government and reporting agencies differ on number of polio cases reported so far.
"The country will soon be free of polio. Only 30 cases have been reported till mid-September this year," said an official release on Monday.
The latest data accessed from National Polio Surveillance Project show at least 44 cases of polio till September. Of these, Uttar Pradesh reported 22 and Bihar 20 new polio cases. "Transmission of the virus ebbs only after October. So the numbers will rise when data for the month is factored in," experts said.
Compared with 2003 (225 cases) and 2004 (134 cases), there are fewer incidence of polio, even in western Uttar Pradesh where the virus circulated widely. During the high-transmission period between March and August, there were 20 cases compared with 82 cases in 2003 and 56 in 2004. In a departure from earlier rounds, monovalent vaccines were used to tackle P1 strain.
To attain a zero-polio certificate, India has to keep the level of new polio cases below 30 every year. Health Ministry hoped that the level would be reached in 2004, but Bihar and Uttar Pradesh disappointed health workers. Experts with the National Polio Surveillance Project believe that India is on its way to complete the task this year. The virus has been cornered in the smallest geographic areas.
The newer cases have come from Etah, Ferozabad, Badaun, Bareilly, Rampur, Aligarh, Agra and Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh. Whereas in Bihar, these range from Araria, Purnia, Samastipur, Patna, Nalanda, Muzaffarpur, Madhepur, Katihar, Siwan and East Champaran. Despite being the focus of global efforts to eradicate polio, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have not exhibited the zeal to immunise children. In key areas, states have not even appointed chief medical officer and supervision is lax.
Of the three types of polio causing viruses, type 2 virus has already been eliminated. During 2004 and 2005, type 3 virus has been restrained and limited to 4 districts of Moradabad, Rampur, Shajahanpur and Bareilly in Western UP. The P1 type virus is very virulent and remains the main cause of polio.
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Yesterday,US announced news polio cases in Amish villages.
<b>Controversy in India over medical tourism</b> <!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->NEW DELHI As foreigners flock to India to find lower health-care costs and avoid long waiting times, the rapid growth of this medical tourism has begun to create significant opposition among doctors here.
Providing cheap treatment for foreigners is becoming an important source of foreign revenue for India, and some doctors are growing angry at the government's focus on it while the health of a large portion of India's population is neglected.
This has prompted an argument between those who assert that medical tourism benefits the Indian health-care system by improving its standards and those who say the practice worsens disparities in the distribution of health care that are already critical.
Medical tourism is forecast to become a $2.3 billion business for India by 2012. Some analysts predict it will be the next major driver of the Indian economy after information technology. Already, about 150,000 visitors seek treatment every year, and this figure is rising at 15 percent annually.
Growing confidence abroad in the Indian system has meant that as health-care costs soar in the United States and as hospital waiting lists grow longer in Europe and elsewhere, more people are prepared to travel to cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore for major operations like heart surgery and organ transplants, as well as for more minor cosmetic treatments.
But the surge in the popularity of India as a place for treatment is triggering complaints among some leading members of the medical community, like Dr. Samiran Nundy, a gastrointestinal surgeon in New Delhi, and Amit Sengupta from the India's People's Health Movement, who wrote about it recently in The British Medical Journal.
<b>"It is time," they said, "for the government to pay more attention to improving the health of Indians rather than to enticing foreigners from affluent countries with offers of low-cost operations and convalescent visits to the Taj Mahal."</b>
...............
<b>According to a 2005 World Health Organization report, India has only 4 doctors for every 10,000 people; in Britain, by contrast, there are 18. In rural India, state hospitals have little money for basic medical equipment or for maintenance of buildings, which are often filthy and overcrowded. India has less than one hospital bed and one physician for every 1,000 people,</b> the World Health Organization said.
...................
Dr. Naresh Trehan, a heart surgeon who set up a private cardiac hospital in New Delhi that attracts hundreds of foreign patients every year, dismissed the anxieties expressed in the British Medical Journal article.
"We hope that we can do this without affecting the treatment for the local population," Trehan said. "<b>It's like space travel. People will always say 'There is so much hunger, why are you doing it?' That's not the point.</b>
<b>"I see this as a complement to internal health care. We are putting in infrastructure."</b>
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Every second child in India is malnourished: Unicef </b>
Pioneer.com
Navneet Anand | Delhi
The darker side of Incredible India is that a whopping 57 million children in India are undernourished, making its rate of malnutrition the same as that of Ethiopia (47 per cent). It is not the lack of food but rather its distribution which is perpetuating this crisis.
<b>Considering that malnutrition is one of the primary reasons for half of the 2.1 million annual child deaths in India, the revelation is alarming</b>. Caught unawares, the Government is contemplating putting in greater emphasis on child and mother healthcare in the the 11th Five Year Plan.
The findings which are part of Unicef's global report on malnutrition, 'Progress for Children', released on Wednesday, further says that the whole South Asian region is gripped with this problem. At the current rate of progress the Millennium Development Goals of halving the child hunger by 2015 will not be reached until 2025.
Each year more than 600,000 under-5 child deaths could be averted in India if a handful of simple health interventions along with correct infant feeding were to be universally applied, according to Unicef. "Correct breastfeeding and complimentary feeding will have a huge impact," said Cecilio Adorna, the Unicef representative to India.
Unicef regional director for South Asia Cecilia Lotse said: "Insufficient quantity of food is less to blame for child undernutrition than poor food quality, women's low social status, early marriage and poor sanitation."
The report comes as a rude shock to the Government as it unveils the vulnerability of reaching benefits of its programmes to intended beneficiaries.
Reva Nayyar, secretary, Ministry of women and child development, besides contesting the figures said that employment guarantee scheme and National Rural Health Mission are putting good emphasis on women and child health.
She added that besides the expansion of the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), the problem is also likely to figure prominently in the 11th FYP
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can someone give a bit of info about the medical tourism scene in india??
i completely agree that out priority is not to provide medical care to foreigners but to our own people - but thats where medical tourism comes in. it would help to generate vital revenue for our domestic mecal system. just like the management quota candidates in engineering colleges in a way pay for the free seat candidates, we should try to provide cheap medical aid to indians by raking money by providing medicare to foreigners.
whci are the sort of treatments for which people come here??
cosmetic surgery?? chemotheraphy?? IVF??
and which cities/states have already taken the lead in this sector??
<!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> New Zealand doctors warn against ayurveda
[ Friday, May 05, 2006 11:10:15 amIANS ]
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WELLINGTON: Doctors in New Zealand have warned against using traditional Indian medicines after eight patients suffered lead poisoning using them, it was reported on Friday.
"We wish to alert the medical community to a substantial threat to well-being posed by a particular form of herbal remedy, namely, Ayurvedic medicine," doctors said in a report in the latest New Zealand Medical Journal.
The eight patients suffered a range of symptoms, including abdominal pain, after taking Ayurvedic powders or tablets, one of which was claimed to be a treatment for male infertility.
One tablet contained 10 mg of lead, with a recommended dose of four a day.
The doctors said that under guidelines set by the UN Food and Health Organisation, a 70 kg adult, taking a single tablet containing 8 mg of lead, would get four times the tolerable weekly intake of lead.
They said that traditional Ayurvedic medicines containing lead or mercury are therapeutically beneficial, but added, "This belief is irreconcilable with Western toxicology".
"From the view of Western science, even minuscule quantities of lead have potential for harm, including irreversible brain damage, and are of absolutely no therapeutic benefit."
The doctors cited US research showing that 20 per cent of Ayurvedic preparations bought in Boston contained substantial amounts of heavy metals.
<!--emo&:rock--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rock.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='rock.gif' /><!--endemo--> Ramdev to deliver lecture at UN
Dehradun
After travelling to many European nations, yoga exponent Baba Ramdev is now set to fly to the United Nations to deliver a lecture on poverty alleviation. Ramdev, who runs Patanjali Yogpeeth at Hardwar, has been invited by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to visit the world bodyâs headquarters at New York and deliver a lecture on October 15, sources close to the guru said.
<!--emo&:cool--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' /><!--endemo--> Brain-damaged man helped by electric pulses
[ 17 Oct, 2006 0044hrs ISTAGENCIES ]
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Dr Bernat said he did not expect the treatment to help brain-damaged patients who had been totally unresponsive for more than a year. But for those who become occasionally or partly responsive after an injury, he said, "I think we should be aggressive and do whatever it takes" to induce improvement.
The doctors threaded two wires through the man's skull and into a subcortical area called the thalamus, which acts as a switching center for circuits that support arousal, attention and emotion, among other functions. The wires were connected to a pacemakerlike unit, implanted under the man's collarbone.
Soon after the operation, and after the device was turned on to adjust the stimulation dose, the patient began to speak words, identifying pictures in a battery of tests, and became gradually more attentive.
"Even though this is a first step, it is of utmost importance, because it shows that this therapeutic approach is worth studying," said Dr Steven Laureys, a neurologist at the University of Liège in Belgium.
"I can only hope that further cases will confirm this result, because if that would fail, we would see this whole idea go back into the fridge for a long time."
<!--emo&<_<--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dry.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='dry.gif' /><!--endemo--> Can drink burn calories?
[ 14 Oct, 2006 1141hrs ISTREUTERS ]
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"Enviga contains the optimum blend of green tea extracts, caffeine and naturally active plant micronutrients designed to work with your body to increase calorie burning, thus creating a negative calorie effect," Rhona Applebaum, Coca-Cola's chief scientist, said in a statement.
Lona Sandon, national spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, said the high mix of caffeine and green tea could possibly raise people's metabolic rate and burn a few extra calories, but it would not lead to any weight loss.
"We are kidding ourselves if we think we can drink this and melt the pounds away. These companies are just playing on people's desires for a quick fix for weight loss," Sandon said.
"This won't make up for a poor diet and lack of exercise and this amount of caffeine could even cause problems for people who are sensitive to caffeine."
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> New Zealand doctors warn against ayurveda