Healthcare...or the Lack of It!

Sarita met with an accident, she was bleeding profusely, she had a skull injury. She was rushed to the nearest hospital, the hospital said the case was too critical and refused to accept it, she was taken to another one where she had to face the same situation. After going to three hospitals she was finally admitted. The doctor did the preliminary dressing of the injuries, said she was under observation. Not until the next day did he inform that she needed a neurologist and they did not have capabilities to treat her and was to be shifted to another hospital. When she was taken to another hospital, the doctors announced that nothing much could be done and there was little hope. Sarita was from a not so well to do background. It was quite a herculean task for her family to bear the costs of the hospitals. While they were wondering how the hospital expenses would be taken care of, they realized they had a government insurance which would cover upto two lakhs of the cost. But they thought now it wouldn't be of much use as the doctors already had said nothing could be done. But much to their surprise in the wake of the new knowledge of the ability to pay the bills, the doctors said there still was scope. Sarita's family could only wonder if this scope is due to the new found money or if there really was scope for her improvement.
There are thousands of Saritas in much worse conditions doing rounds of our ill equipped hospitals every day. While the government hospitals have the equipment they are such dismal condition that any sensible person would think twice before going to them. Any body who has any hope to come out alive doesn't dare to go to the government hospital today. And there are central bodies like AIMS which have patients waiting for years together, many a time a patient dies before it is his/her turn to get treated.Well inevitably people turn to the private hospitals whose only motive is to make money. Extract money from every ounce of a person. Well why did we end up here?
There are more than one reason for this deplorable condition, which a simpleton like me can think of. The government spending on health has considerably reduced, though there are equipment there are no more funds for the up keeping of them. No funds to get them into running. Above all neglect. There is no monitoring of the functioning of the health care system. It is even a hyperbole to say we have a health care system. The government has found an easy way out, privatization. Well If you have money you can definitely buy your life back, but if you don't then you any way do not have the right to live. Our country, which wants to be counted among the super powers has millions of children dying due to lack of proper health care system. Well these kids definitely do not reach the front page of any news paper so probably it doesn't matter. As per the big minds, in another 25 yrs of time the old age population of India would become higher the young population. If that is the case, with such non existent health care system, where are we headed?
However unrelated they might sound, privatization of education is the most important reason for the peril we are in. With the private firms ruling the education sector, today a student has to spend almost a crore to become a functioning doctor. Yes there are government universities but the number of doctors they are producing is far less than the requirement of our population. With such unthinkable amounts of fees, we are almost restricting the profession to a certain section of upper class people and making it inaccessible to any other. So what does one do when one buys his/her doctor degree with a crore rupees, one looks to get back the crore. Where does one get it from, the answer is a nobrainer, with the government health care system neglected and salaries no where near the "market value", one definitely heads to the money minting corporate machines ( I would prefer to call it money minting morgues) called the private hospitals. What about the commitment and the will to serve the people which is the inherent quality of a doctor, well when one pays a crore through the nose animals like commitment and dedication are killed brutally.
Anand was a heart surgeon, he had decided right at the beginning of his career that he would use his education to serve the people and not to make money, that he would work with the public health care system and serve the needy. As a newbie, he thought he would change things but when he saw things as basic of sterilization of needles for stitching not being done, he was shocked. None of the basics of medicine seem to apply where he worked. One year into the job, he had a choice to make "Continue with the public health care and see people die infront of his eyes due to neglect or move out." It was a devil's choice.