Is Indian Healthcare equal to the Challenge

[Music]

first of all thank you to all my friends

in techno india university for giving me

this opportunity

to share a few thoughts and words with

you

this afternoon friends without

a shadow of doubt for a country

come out of the shadows of a traumatic

independence it spent

seven decades to get back to some kind

of

quality of life and living and

on the 73rd juncture of 73rd and 74th

year of its existence

something like kobe has been a very

cruel glow there is no way that we can

mince our words

and sort of you know understate what

it’s entirely a different matter to say

that the problem would be less

was this sort of infection told of

nearly 8 million people

125 000 dead was

it inevitable perhaps it was not

the wisdom and the self-discipline the

cleverness

that was shown by the countries of

southeast asia

korea japan vietnam

laos cambodia even sri lanka

seemed to have been lost on the south

asian neighbors

on the european countries and of course

the united states

we succumbed to the infection and we

have paid a heavy price for it

not only in terms of the disease burden

but also

in terms of the crippling impact on

indian economy crippling impact on

inflation

job losses and every other possible

toxicity but friends

india has seen worse if we consider

the 8 million people who have been

inflicted with the sickness

if we consider the 125 000

lives lost to be the ultimate disaster

of this nation

just look back in 1946 to 1947

ten times the number had their lives

disrupted

about 15 times the num life the number

of lives were lost

in the process that we euphemistically

called

the partition of india the independence

of india

so we have seen words and we have had

the perseverance

and resilience to emerge from that

but question remains that is it just

is it just a function of inspiration is

it just a function of emotion

i don’t think it is so speaking to you

as a doctor speaking to you

as somebody who is incorrigibly addicted

to every each and every detail

healthcare

it just cannot be an emotive

a spontaneous a knee-jerk kind of

exercise

i’m sure we will but the process of

bouncing back

will be based on two fundamental

premises the first premise will be the

premise of intention

the intention has got to come from the

policy makers the

lawmakers the politicians the ministers

the administrators the bureaucrats

and if we are to show to our 135

pro people one and a half billion people

that we are seriously intent on

refabricating

on reviving the social and the

healthcare

fabric of this country then it has to be

backed

by serious policy and the policy

has to supply enough resources

because to have a kind of flood of

emotions

a flood of parables a dictionary of

wisdom

but at the end of the day we end up

spending a thousand five hundred rupees

every year for the health care of an

average

indian a thousand five hundred rupees

which can’t even buy you a decent

meat for two people in any very

poor quality restaurant is all we afford

to spend

on healthcare of our citizens

so it has to be a clear-cut policy why

is policy important because a lot of the

good intentions of

indian health care gets drifted

gets eroded in the confusion in what is

public what is private

what is controlled by the central

government what is controlled by the

state government

and it is like a block of wood falling

between two stones

that indian healthcare has so many

faction factional stakeholders that at

the end of the day it leaves you

wondering

that is hazard is it suffering from the

syndrome

of being nobody’s child so we need

clarity

we need clarity to tell us that which

aspects of healthcare

is in the domain of the central

government and which aspects will be

controlled by the state

and who funds what we are not going to

have an alliance land

which is continuously going to produce

something out of nothing

because at the end of the day our

aim is to have decent quality health

care

which does not put people into crippling

indebtedness private health care today

accounts for almost 60 percent of the

total turnover of the total number of

procedures that

patients say government healthcare also

contributes a lot

which is the rest 40 percent but there

has to be effective communication

there has to be effective interaction

between the two

it is this partition it is this kind of

you know a barbed wire that is

separating the public from the private

in indian healthcare today

perhaps the only more rigid boundary

that we know in india is probably the

india pakistan

border so we have to circumvent these

differences

bridges will have to be willed and there

is tremendous policy confusion

which is preventing indian health care

from growing to

its own potential and the other area you

know where today is speaking to new

people

to the young minds of techno india

university

but where in healthcare we have been

tremendously disingenuous

is not inspiring the youngsters

to join the army of people who is

necessary

to to to man indian healthcare is not

just doctors

it means doctors it means nurses it

means technicians

it means microbiologists it means

biostatisticians

it means healthcare managers so we have

to

inspire these people it is it is out of

their coalition

out of their conscious thinking

as somebody just said what wonderful

lines

follow your passion so the youngsters of

today

who are not burdened by the wisdom and

negativity

of the old folks like myself who will

have to be

inspired to pursue the dream of coming

into healthcare

and serving this country of a billion

and a half

people we are not doing a great job of

that

in medical education today the basic

medical education like mbbs

is almost reached like a filthy piece of

paper

it has no relevance in our in our lives

it is considered to be a poor man’s

degree

we have this entire you know sort of

burden

of young young students repeatedly

sitting for multiple choice questions

somebody who wants to be a gynecologist

ends up being a pathologist

somebody who wants to be a surgeon ends

up being

uh probably you know uh us kind of

pathologists have you ever heard of a

civil engineer

being forced to become an electrical

engineer there isn’t

but in medicine we are failing to

inspire people and lead them to their

path

where they can pursue a vocation of

their choice

when we take in medical students 50

of that intake of medical students are

women

young women india produces about 80 000

doctors per year at the intake level

about 40 40 000 or more are young ladies

young girls

by the time they have finished their

medical education

and they have come into medical practice

about half of them have left the

profession

there is less than 25 of

women left in medicine today when it

comes to effective clinical practice

we have to look inside and ask ourselves

a question then why are we such a cruel

and misogynistic kind of profession why

can’t

why can we not look at the difficulties

of the of the pre-me of the of the women

who had chosen in the in in the very

beginning

to pursue this specialties

so if indian has got to get back to its

feet which we

are sharing with again it will

not happen just based on the form

and fraud and the back full of

sentiments

that comes out from the way we need

policy we need resources

and we need the realistic inspiration

that is going to inspire the youtube

india

india’s most valuable commodity

the young minds the young brains the

youth of india

has got to come and populate the

the aridity of indian health care today

i’m sure we will bounce back

because as it is said very often that

china is a country

that prospered because of the government

and

indians more often than not prosper

in spite of the government i hope

it has been said in chest and it will

remain in chest

but honestly in healthcare there are

that many obstacles

and there are that many stumbles in the

way that it almost sounds

as being realistic we will bounce back

the lessons that the that pandemic has

taught us

will remain ingrained a lot of the

things

in clinical medical management has

changed our outlook on public health on

pharmacology

on critical care management has

undergone a radical revolution in the

course of the last several months

and this lesson will be embedded

in the dna of every doctors for

centuries to come but once again

let the health care of this country

which will and certainly be equal to the

challenge

be based on intentions reality

and resources and if i can

twist around the words of devour a

little

bit and end by saying

that father into that new dawn

into that into that new reality

where inspiration mixes

with serious intention let my

country awake

thank you very much i remain in your

debt

thank you

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