I came across the title of this book in moneylife(a magazine) through an article on the healthcare system of India and how the latest promise of Mr Modi in his Universal Health Insurance Scheme is not the silver bullet that India has been looking for. Before reading this book I knew that the Indian healthcare stories are full of corruption, commercialization and medical negligence but after reading this i now know the magnitude of the situation and it is alarming at the very least
78 doctors have mustered the courage to allow the publishers and authors of this book to tell us what really has been going on in India. Methodology followed in this book is uniform as the interview questions which have been asked have been same to all of them. Some of the respondents have requested the authors to conceal their identity which is understandable. These doctors are the reason that common citizens like me now are aware of the rights we have and the avenues from which we can seek help
Since I've been reading this book, there has been a concept in my head which has been persistently nagging me. It is a concept of economics called as "Purely Public Goods". All those good which enjoy non-rivalry( money extraction by creating artificial supply shock) and non-excludability( no privileged access to anyone) are called purely public goods. The best example of this safe drinking water. Since it is required by all and cannot be allowed to be the reason that people fight or bid for it, its availability is monopolized by the government. I was wondering whether public health can be looked through the same prism or not. Can it be treated as a purely public service and the ownership should be monopolized by the government? This is the age old debate of whether health services should be treated as a social right or a commodity. In India, theoretically it is defined as a social right and is used by politicians whenever there's need whereas in practice, it is as commoditized as vegetables that we buy from our local vendors
I understand that a lot of my doctor brothers and sisters can put hundred arguments in front of to defend the privatization of medical care in India but i want to point out that any problem always has two ends to it and they should not forget that they themselves can be on the receiving end of what they have created or abetted. I won't be pointing out the various flaws which the system has been suffering from as it has been done by the author itself instead, I would like to talk about the models which we can emulate especially the supposed silver bullet, Universal Health Care(UHC)
UHC is a model in which health care has effectively been created into a purely public service. No patient pays for their treatment and all personnel are paid by the government. Funds for these treatments are garnered through taxes. This is a very simple yet innovative model which has been successfully implemented by UK, Thailand, Canada, Brazil and even Sri Lanka. It is important to note here that this model has succeeded in these countries because of excellent public health care facilities, trust hospitals and even the private hospitals which have willingly participated in the cause
Friends I don't know how many of us have realized but the social conscience of our country seems to be at its nadir and I can only apprehend what's more in store for us. It has been my observation and I'm sharing it with you here and I hope that some people would appreciate it. All of the problems which have been age old in our society like corruption, terror, malpractices, inhumanity etc etc, I feel in the current scenario, this has spread because our increasing inclination towards consumerism. You can look up the definition of the word in Wikipedia and you will be surprised to see the benign definition there--> acquisition of goods in ever increasing amounts. I'm not prompting any of us to the positive or the negative aspect of it but would like to urge to people to try to entertain this thought as to whether all of our problems has its roots in this concept
Parth Agarwal
"We thus find ourselves at crossroads: healthcare can be considered a commodity to be sold or it can be considered a basic social right because it cannot comfortably be considered both of these at the same time"-> Dr paul Farmer
78 doctors have mustered the courage to allow the publishers and authors of this book to tell us what really has been going on in India. Methodology followed in this book is uniform as the interview questions which have been asked have been same to all of them. Some of the respondents have requested the authors to conceal their identity which is understandable. These doctors are the reason that common citizens like me now are aware of the rights we have and the avenues from which we can seek help
Since I've been reading this book, there has been a concept in my head which has been persistently nagging me. It is a concept of economics called as "Purely Public Goods". All those good which enjoy non-rivalry( money extraction by creating artificial supply shock) and non-excludability( no privileged access to anyone) are called purely public goods. The best example of this safe drinking water. Since it is required by all and cannot be allowed to be the reason that people fight or bid for it, its availability is monopolized by the government. I was wondering whether public health can be looked through the same prism or not. Can it be treated as a purely public service and the ownership should be monopolized by the government? This is the age old debate of whether health services should be treated as a social right or a commodity. In India, theoretically it is defined as a social right and is used by politicians whenever there's need whereas in practice, it is as commoditized as vegetables that we buy from our local vendors
I understand that a lot of my doctor brothers and sisters can put hundred arguments in front of to defend the privatization of medical care in India but i want to point out that any problem always has two ends to it and they should not forget that they themselves can be on the receiving end of what they have created or abetted. I won't be pointing out the various flaws which the system has been suffering from as it has been done by the author itself instead, I would like to talk about the models which we can emulate especially the supposed silver bullet, Universal Health Care(UHC)
UHC is a model in which health care has effectively been created into a purely public service. No patient pays for their treatment and all personnel are paid by the government. Funds for these treatments are garnered through taxes. This is a very simple yet innovative model which has been successfully implemented by UK, Thailand, Canada, Brazil and even Sri Lanka. It is important to note here that this model has succeeded in these countries because of excellent public health care facilities, trust hospitals and even the private hospitals which have willingly participated in the cause
Friends I don't know how many of us have realized but the social conscience of our country seems to be at its nadir and I can only apprehend what's more in store for us. It has been my observation and I'm sharing it with you here and I hope that some people would appreciate it. All of the problems which have been age old in our society like corruption, terror, malpractices, inhumanity etc etc, I feel in the current scenario, this has spread because our increasing inclination towards consumerism. You can look up the definition of the word in Wikipedia and you will be surprised to see the benign definition there--> acquisition of goods in ever increasing amounts. I'm not prompting any of us to the positive or the negative aspect of it but would like to urge to people to try to entertain this thought as to whether all of our problems has its roots in this concept
Parth Agarwal
"We thus find ourselves at crossroads: healthcare can be considered a commodity to be sold or it can be considered a basic social right because it cannot comfortably be considered both of these at the same time"-> Dr paul Farmer
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