பைத்தியக்காரத்தனத்துக்கு விலை ஒரு சிறுவனின் உயிர்

செல்லப் பிராணிகளை பல மக்கள் வசிக்கும் குடியிருப்பவர்களில் உள்ளோர் வளர்த்தால் மிகவும் ஜாக்கிரதையாக இருத்தல் அவசியம். அவர்கள் தம் செல்ல பிராணிகள் அவர்களுக்கு மிக well behaved and friendly to people என்று நினைகல்லாம். அவர்களின் அந்த நினைப்பின் முட்டாள்தனத்துக்கு ஒரு குழந்தையின் உயிர் விலையான சோக சம்பவம்.

http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/30/stories/2009033056850100.htm

Political Observations

We have an advantage that we have abundant natural resources in our country,this including a talent pool of educated people, literate people and uneducated people with wordly wisdom.

We also have several advantages like booming sectors in flourishing economy temporary minor hiccups not taken into consideration ,a maturing entratainment industry which we relish in our spare time, a expensive but renowned health care industry, network of educational establishments churning out street smart kids.
We also have a third or second largest economy in the making within a span of 15-20 years.

During the election campaigns in US, we closely followed Mr.O'bama's campaign and was thrilled by his caption "yes we can". Have we wondered whether we too can have this feeling of "yes we can"?

My following text is to highlight a pressing need of the hour for a silent but non-revolutionary awakening among us for a minor change/amendment in our political system. The makers of our constitution who have been geniuses in coming out with a fine blue print for democracy have but failed on 2 counts. I make this statement with due respect to our makers of our constitution , but with a humble spirt i make these observations.

During the 26/11 attacks we watched our youth spearheading a campaign mouthing slogans of delhi chalo to wake up our leaders in the parliament to pressing need for effective security techniques in the country. i could see in the tv , a spirt of bapu, a dynamism of nehru, a steely resolve of sardar, a determination of bhagat amongst the mindset of the youth.

Coming to brasstacks, we see a profileration of parties based on ideologies,caste based ideologies. While the democracies in US and UK with thier two party system are able to move ahead peacefully without any confusion of sorts, we are not able to do so in a streamlined manner. The reason being that during elections the voter is not able to make a clear choice in his descion , since there is a plethora of parties for a choice to be made and well as leaders of parties are confused and seem to make alliances based on permutations of future coalition parties.
Is it possible for the younger generation among us, we the people in our generation to make a campaign assertively stating that "yes we can" for a 2 party system. his would solve most of the confusion in our country as a first step.Could we press our leaders for a 2 party system at the center by making minor amendments to that effect. In this way caste based politics wont be there , in first step and the voter would not only choose between the two of parties at the center. Once this goes successfully , the success plan at the center would percolate at the states, where finally a 2 party system is also at the state.
I request our friends to think deeply with existing clarity and make up thier minds so that future generations dont go through the confusions of past and present generations.
A very simple solution being that the major and second major party could be taken as 2 parties , and remaning parties made to join these parties , either the largest or second largest party. By largest i mean in terms of party membership.
AN e.g from my humble view is that we have parties , largest being congress and the BJP, the other parties willing to form a coalition stake could fuse themselves into congress or BJP, thus dissolving thier party indentities.
I think from my humble opinion that this is way for clear cut electoral policies as well electoral choice as is prevalent in US or UK.
sincerely.

Social observation(Bapu..Bapu)

It was morning and the day was getting hotter,by hotter I mean peoples emotions
were getting fiery. There were news of clashes between 2 castes,there was a news spreading by way of hearsay that a strike had gone violent.In another part of the country there were rumors of regionalism raising its ugly head and a couple of people had been roughed up in that region on grounds that they were not born in that native place!!.

In addition the suffering old men and women were trudging on barefoot, this was the army of hungry old people trudging on bare foot expecting a meal or two from the flashily dressed people driving fashionable cars and bikes.. thier pumpled egos and fantasies driven up by movies and the feel good factor that economy was booming for them. An old lady begging for food was completely ignored by a set of young men and women poised in couple of tables on a road side famous eatery. The old lady clutched her under belly in deep hunger and the muscles in her abdomen were corroded by the gastric juices..symptoms like fainting and low blood pressure were assailing her senses and she had to endure this suffering of going without food for this day too..

Few couple of lovers were seen handing thier hands and enjoying the fleeting moment and time,oblivious of the scene that a young infant had been let to handle crumbs of breads in roadside while the mother was seen begging in the fleet of cars waiting at the signal which was about to turn yellow(those were the good old days..Mumbai Express!!!).

In a remote region of the country 2 sets of regious people were seen fighting with one and another. Blood was running freely on the roads and pavements. Children were burnt alive. Young men were beheaded while young ladies were raped. The rapacious nature of both the sets of relegion forgetting that there could be possibility of GOD being one if there was one GOD, and it was just the matter of religions being different.

All the events were paradoxical to fact that there had lived a man who had belonged to humanity.This man was frail in anatomy but had led crores people in a non violent struggle from his place called Sabhartamti. He had had been called Bapu and was one of the first ever social prophets.His sayings were much respected and admired by the western world. People had forgotten this social prophet called Bapu in his own land (and dancing to the tunes of Bapu.. Bapu..).

Public-private partnership in health sector encouraging

Link to an article on PPP. View the Link 

முதல்வனே கண் பாராய்

The Food and Consumer Protection Department will set up a call centre, with a toll-free number, to redress the grievances of ration card holders, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection commissioner K. Rajaraman said on Tuesday.

Link

Preliminary draft of my work on Patient Rights

Ashwin1 was diagnosed of having acute appendicitis and advised to undergo appendectomy (surgical procedure to remove appendicitis) immediately. But for the slight discomfort the previous week, he felt his health was quite normal and can't understand the need to undergo a surgical procedure at such a short notice. Not wanting to take chances, felt that he will probably have a second opinion from another physician on his condition and the need for an immediate surgery. He requested the hospital authorities to share with him the medical reports so that he will have a second opinion on the suggested course of treatment. He was surprised to find the indifferent attitude of the hospital towards him and their unwillingness to part with information to seek another opinion..


Aditya's 2 3year old son was prescribed a drug overdose by a pediatrician for the recurring fever. This led to very severe consequences and the child needed ICU care for 3 days and a painful process of recovery due to this wrong medication. Aditya wanted to register his complaint against the pediatrician and the hospital but finds out that there is absolutely no framework for grievance redressal and there is a systemic neglect to have one. The prevalent attitude with the people managing the health care set-up's is that such human errors are an inevitable artifact of the Indian landscape and there is not a need to address them and the hospitals do not have a legal or a moral responsibility to address them..


65 yr old widowed Chitra3 was admitted for a by-pass surgery in a leading multi-specialty hospital. She gathered information about the treatment costs and was given an estimate of the cost involved with the treatment and decided to go ahead with it. But the hospital stated in the middle that due to unexpected complications that came up during the surgery charges have become significantly higher than what she was told in the beginning. Neither she nor the ones who were caring for her were even briefed of such a possibility at any point in time before the start of the treatment. The difference in the rates were so significant that Chitra may not be able to meet that expenditure, which puts her in an un-enviable position of having to choose whether to continue the treatment or not in that hospital.. for not being able to afford it..


Does any of this sound too familiar an experience to relate to what you or your loved ones face while dealing with the health care set-up? Then you have certainly hit upon a web-page, which makes an earnest attempt at addressing one of the fundamental aspects of the complex issue, which has led the health care system to what it is now.


Traditionally Doctor-Patient relationship in our culture has worked on the tenets of basic faith and trust on doctors. In earlier times social accountability (the possibility of earning a bad name due to improper medial advice) and the very dynamics of society which offered scope for a personal relationship with doctors treating or managing the hospitals in towns and cities provided a framework where-in the ability of doctors to self-govern themselves was thought of to be sufficient. However in these times of crass commercialization and corporatization of health care system in our country, the above line of thinking has lost its relevance.


To ensure that the patient's interests are best served in this system, we need a well defined regulatory mechanism that is defined to the minutest details on its implementation and larger consumer participation towards ensuring its implementation. Fundamental to the realization of any of our aspirations on that front is the articulation of the fundamental rights that a patient is entitled to in this system.


A pertinent point to note here is that 87%(search in net or collect this info from Dr. Abhijit and put the appropriate number here) of the health care service in India is offered by the private players. The continuing systematic decline of the state run health care institutions is going to further increase this number in the coming years. These private health care players can range from anything like a single person managed OPD clinics, individuals owned 20-30 bed nursing homes to corporate run multi-specialty hospitals. With the broad spectrum of interests that drives the private players in the health care system, without a legal obligation for compliance to set rules and punitive measures for its dereliction, it is almost impossible to bring in any rational framework to make this wide variety of players comply with the basic rights that the patients are entitled to. The focus of this web-page is to mobilize public support towards a movement aimed at achieving this.


While various organization and bodies in the past have focused on the issue of patient rights in the health care system, the efforts have been quite scattered and invariably targeted at certain specific interest groups (E.g. National Inst of Mental Health and Neurological Sciences (NIMHANS) focusing on the rights of mental health patients, National Aids Control Organization (NACO) guidelines for the rights of the HIV infected). SATHI CEHAT working under the auspices of Guan Maharashtra(Re-name to the appropriate body) has worked to evolve a standard charter for the patient rights. This provides a comprehensive set of the basic rights and also defines the mechanism for the functioning of health care set-up that would facilitate the establishment of these rights for the patients. The developed charter now needs the states approval to formulate them as mandatory rules to follow for the hospitals. The charter is focused on the following:


Right to access health care
Independent of their caste/creed or economic status has the right to health care
Right to non-discrimination
In the case of HIV-infected or other illness where there is a social stigma attached to it.
Right to emergency treatment
Right to Information
Share information on all aspects of treatment
Nature of illness
Complications that can arise out of treatment, cost and expected outcomes
Alternative treatment options available
Consequences of not choosing to take the treatment
Access to his/her medical records at all times
Discharge/Death summary at the time of leaving the hospital
Right to privacy and confidentiality
Right to autonomy and decision making
Right to seek a second opinion
Right to have a grievance redressal forum
Right to have a mechanism to make informed consent
This is applicable to nursing homes involved in clinical trials


Though the issues and rights based discourse that are outlined above has a pan India relevance, the ground level activities of CEHAT are targeted at getting this charter of rights established at the hospitals in Maharashtra. This requires that this charter gets the approval of the Maharashtra state government (as health is usually a state subject).


The information in the side-bar and the links will take you to pages that will give a better overview on the individual rights. It also includes a chronological summary on the efforts of SATHI-CEHAT to date on this issue. As stated previously the prime objective of this web-page currently is to mobilize public support for this campaign. As a concerned individual, if you wish to contribute to this cause, it is just a click away. You can sign the E-petition (we will provide link to the E-petition page here). This letter outlines the charter and is drafted in the way that the signatories are part of the campaign to demand the Government to make the implementation of this charter a reality.


The long term objectives of this page are also

Establish a forum to share individual grievances and personal experiences of the people on the context of denial of basic rights of patients in the hospitals
Establish Doctor-Citizen forum, where-in the concerns of the citizens with the hospitals are addressed to a council of doctors representing the private health care system. The activity in this web-page can act as catalyst for the creation of the real one.
Establish community based participatory regulation in health care system
Volunteer Activism for monitoring the functioning of the system
Creation of citizen groups for grievance redressal forums

We welcome any valuable suggestion from the readers of this page to make this campaign a success. We would also very much like to have the readers thought (in the comments space) on any issues that aligns with this current campaign and the long term objectives outlined above.

Health tips on a postcard

Writing postcards fill up most of the empty hours in the life of this health-sector personnel who retired as Additional Director, Health, to the Andhra Pradesh government. And no, he does not write letters to the editor on either Barrack Obama’s foreign policy or on Slumdog Millionaire’s merits and demerits, post the Oscar awards.Link