Recently I had the good fortune of listening to one of my uncles
sharing his experiences and woes about how he has been taking care of
his father who is bed ridden and old. He found it very difficult to
find a caretaker to look after his father as they were either
exorbitantly expensive or his father would not gel well with the
person. He, let's say is very fond of his father because he has right
now, quit his job to look after daddy dearest. :). What a son eh?
Well... That solved one of his worries, the one where he didn't have a
caretaker. His dad who's is close to 90 years of age requires monthly
check ups of his health (BP, ECG ) so the problem of getting a doctor
to come home to perform the routine health check up sprung up. Well...
To be honest doctors seldom cooperate for these home visits because
once he makes trip to the patient's house then they become morally
obligated to the patient's health and well being and it would be his,
that contact number the relatives would call at times of an emergency
and that ill fated moment maybe in the middle of your son's 1st
birthday or the day when you called sick and took the day off to take
a well deserved break. This being the reason why my uncle found it
extremely difficult to get a doctor who was up for the task. Then he
later came across this person, a doctor who does these routine check
ups for rich NRIs' parents who've left their parents alone at home in
India and he fixed an appointment to go meet him. And wow! he said
that it was a mansion full of nurses, the doctor's clinic laden with
the latest equipment and all for geriatric care. And as he entered the
doctor welcomed him in and my uncle put up his problem about his sick
and bed ridden father and since his knees aren't too strong he he
finds it difficult to travel even for these monthly hospital visits.
The doctor patiently listened much to the relief of my uncle then he
said- "Mr. Varma, you see, geriatric care good business" rubbing his
hands. That really gave all that was to be known of what medical care
is in the eyes of this doctor. "We handle patient records on an annual
basis so we shall put down this proposal comprising what all tests we
offer to do and the overall expenditure you will incur... Hmm... Where
do you work Mr. Varma?". The answer to this question in the end will
decide what that 'overall expenditure' will amount to and it actually
has very little to do with what all medical tests will be conducted!.
Leaving my uncle little choice, he did what was required. A
comprehensive file would be delivered over to his home which which
comprise of all the apparent care that his dad would receive and how
much money he'd be laundered for it. Fortunately, it was something he
could manage despite not having a job currently over an indefinite
interval. Satisfied that both issues were sorted out, though after
much difficulty, the doc did his job for around 3-4 months quite well
for the money he was being paid. But then gradually he started sending
his students over for looking after the dad and saw less of he himself
monitoring the condition. This vexed my uncle quite a bit because this
one time he chatted with the person who came for the tests and found
out that he was a 3rd year student of nursing and that he was a little
nervous because it was one of his patients who is as old as 90+ in
age. End of story.
My uncle also narrated this story of his friend who tried homeopathic
treatment for his mother's knees and the doctor gave some weird
medicines in unnamed containers, with no date of manufacture, no date
of expiry, nothing! Skeptical about what he was administering to his
mother, he had it tested by his friend who told him of what the
ingredients were... An exact match of some tonic from ayurveda it
was!. Bottled and sold at Rs 450 with no name, nothing, market price
of the same medicine in the field of medicine it 'really' belongs- Rs
95.00...
Hmm...
Money laundering doctors, fakes, all plague the world of indian medicine :(
Another really scary story my mom told me was about one of her
colleagues who got her root canal done at some clinic in mylapore. The
dentist wrongfully anesthetized the patient and it affected the nerve
ending on the jaw. The consequences were so severe, that the left side
of her face, one of her facial muscle suffered spasms and her mouth
was yanked open and locked in that position resembling a half joker's
face, horrifying!, and the nerve started giving here severe back pains
and she couldn't walk properly for days... It took 3 odd months of
agonizing pain and physiotherapy for her to return to normal!
What is the reason why there are so many careless, ill trained, money
minded doctors? And why has not this problem been heeded earlier
itself? India boasts of excellent medical care. Oh common! We compare
ourselves with the 3rd world countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka,
Africa and the Arab countries And its good only at the highest level,
in the best of medical colleges and hospitals. If we are in the
position to boast then it should be when such facilities trickle down
to the lower most level of medical care, that of in the villages.
India always had problems with this trickle down effect phenomenon. It
somehow seems almost non existent and impractical as a solution.
Well leave that aside, we do have certain standard of medicine we can
be proud of, because our MBBS degree is recognized in most parts of
the developed world.
If one may notice it takes 3-4 Lakhs for a engineering seat free of
academic requirements, whereas close to 15-16 Lakhs for a medical
seat. Parents who do what they can to help fulfill their child's
dreams or in fact their dreams!, go for education loans with the
thought in mind that their child can help pay it back once he gets his
job. What is actually happening is that lazy students who anything but
deserve to study at the medical college get admitted and just barely
manage to scrape through and make pathetic graduates simply because
they lack the commitment a doctor requires to his work. These
'doctors' are then burdened with the task of paying back those
educational loans taken on their behalf. Medical treatment is a
necessity to the public. A doctor is actually trusted with the
patient's life hence are forced to cough up cash as he demands, for
his services. Corrupt doctors!, As if that's the only thing left to
defile!, plague the medical system, thus.