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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