The first article elaborated the following:”Medical science is doing its best to add years to life and life to years.” Three possible solutions are mentioned in this context. Experiments are being conducted to make these solutions a reality. There are a lot of limitations and complications in the processes involved which will need to be surmounted. How much will the success rate measure up to is left to be seen. But what struck me was the zeal and enthusiasm of the medical world to try and achieve the highly impossible. There may be other motives in mind while trying to achieve this. But it cannot be denied that one of the main motives is to give people a better heart so that they may be able to live better, healthier lives.
In the other article the opening statement reads thus: “The cost of medical devices like stents and pacemakers is enough to give anyone a heartache.” I was shocked to read that hospitals make huge profits on medicines and devices. They do this by purchasing these medicines and devices in bulk quantities at dirt cheap rates and then sell them to patients for a bomb. Patients have no option. Sometimes these medicines and devices are not available in the open market. Very often hospitals make it mandatory for a patient to use only that medicine or device which they supply to the patient. If a patient cannot be shifted out of that hospital for any reason whatsoever, what option is he left with. He is entirely at the butchering hands of the hospital. Imagine the cost of these things when every stakeholder in the field right down from the manufacturing company to the hospital has the cut (that is a large chunk of money) on them. And who is literally the ‘sufferer’, is the patient himself.
Today many people, rich and poor, go to hospitals for various kinds of specialized treatments and surgeries like knee-joint replacements, removal of cataracts etc. Sometimes even poor people want to go to private hospitals instead of government hospitals, hoping to get better treatment and facilities. Probably they may have exhausted their life’s savings just to pay up for bare essentials. But if doctors and hospitals fleece them this way, then who can be their refuge?
The government would do well to step in and lay down strict guidelines for doctors, hospitals, dealers and manufacturers. It should monitor what is happening in our hospitals and bring the offenders to book.
The medical fraternity is a vocation. Only those who really want to alleviate the sufferings of others, especially the poor, should take up medicine and allied jobs. Unfortunately, in these times doctors, hospitals etc have made caring for the suffering, one of the most lucrative businesses in our state. Even so-called ‘charitable’ hospitals are not exempt from this malaise. Let those who are supposed to care for life not be the ones to take it away!
