The mystique of medicine and the cost of treatment

How much does it cost to treat diarrhoea in children? A lot, as we realised when we came face-to-face with diarrhoea and the medical establishment, twice in the span of less than a month. I had written earlier about the water in our neighbourhood. Needless to say, our little one was down with her second bout of diarrhoea, in less than a month. We started out with homeopathy on both occasions. Our resolve to be patient and wait out until the infection dies out, was quickly overcome when we saw the condition of the child not improving.

The second time was worse than the first episode. A visit to the local doctor, not yielding any visible benefits, saw us rush for a consultation with a specialist pediatrician, who filled in two long sides of a prescription sheet with medicines and powders of different kinds. Banish any thought of rational medicines and good old home remedies! In fact, when we asked the doctor about some of the specifications of the medicines (more in the nature of clarification, rather than confrontation), he lost his cool and said “then why do you come to me?” – the arrogance of knowledge being mystified and given into a few hands!!! Anyway, we visited at least three different medical stores to get the array of powders and medicines – the hocus-pocus of modern medicines. The whole exercise in ignorance, set us back by about Rs.1000 (the second time). On closer examination, we realised that one of the costly powders was a substitute for its poor (but effective) and distant cousin – kanji (rice gruel), while another was a substitute for home-made ORS, and yet another was a replacement for milk (to not aggravate the loosies). As a parting shot, he also said that we need to get her stool tested, (but of course, the clinic also had a lab attached) and that in case she did not improve and pass urine in the next few hours, we had to get her admitted (and yes, he runs a children’s hospital also). No tips on how to take care of the child at home, or how to avoid hospitalisation – purely a “pill for every ill” or rather “a load of pills for every ill” approach.

 For more photos, click here.

Just opposite the housing colony where we live is a large slum. The children there, not only have access to the same (if not worse) water, but also have poor living conditions and all other typical features which characterise slums in cities. It was especially with reference to this slum, that the doctor has said “oh, diarrhoea, everybody gets it here”. If everybody gets it, and spends so much of their hard-earned money on the doctors and medicines, and syrups and tonics and lost wages, then why is nothing being done about it? One reason is definitely the mystique of modern medicine carefully preserved and crafted and refined by the practioners of the art, to keep common people from taking health in to their own hands. After all, if they do that, where will they make their living from? That’s the tragedy of commercialisation of medicine and medical education. Wither health for all???

Stop communalising terror!

In this age of 24 hour television news channels, it is quite common to hear reporters quote unconfirmed reports and half-truths, especially when the situation is just developing. In the mad scramble to be the first one reporting the “story”, the causality figures are exaggerated, the cause of the incident speculated upon and the incident is thoroughly sensationalised. In most cases, this does not result in major problems, because soon the actual figures are out, and some responsible agency makes a statement, and life moves on. Nobody holds the channel to task for hiking the figures initially or for giving their ‘opinions’ as the news. It is at best seen as an irritant that one has to live with, because one also sympathises with the young reporters who are in the field, who are supposed to have all knowledge about the incident (sometimes even before it completely unfolds), and answer confidently when the news anchor sitting in the studio shoots off questions. (One hopes that the Indian news channels will work on this aspect, and minimise such incidents. It is a potentially dangerous trend). But the irritation turns into disgust when senior journalists write their dangerously biased opinions, and it is carried prominently in the middle pages of a Sunday newspaper.

A senior journalist has recently (What’s ailing RAW?, Times of India (ToI), Sep 9, 2007) tried to link the incidents of recent “terror attacks” in India to “states where the governments are hyper-sensitive about their avowed secular bias”. He asks if the terror groups have “taken advantage of the political constraints on effective policing?” As a contrast he points to Gujarat and asks “is their inability to strike, in Gujarat linked to the state’s no-nonsense policing?

Well, if non-nonsense policing means, refusing to file FIRs, multiple encounter killings, lapses in providing security cover to witnesses, taking no action when symbols and places of worship, and practitioners and leaders of different religions are targeted, then there are many reports to show for that kind of efficiency. Also, the attack on the Akshardham temple, killing 31 people and wounding more than 80, which happened in the “no-nonsense policing” state of Gujarat less than five years ago is still fresh in public memory.
In the article, the author blames “liberalism gone astray”. And what does that mean? He says that “it is all very well to drive home the truism that all Muslims are not terrorists”, and that the “slogan ‘terrorists have no religion’ is an adroit homily…”, which he says will cause complications when “transmitted down the line to mean that no Muslim is a terrorist”. These kind of statements not just communalise terror, they also, strengthen the already prejudiced views about Muslims. Kuldip Nayar, in a recent article in Afternoon, Mumbai says that “non-compliance of Krishna report spread the impression that when it comes to taking action against Muslims, the government is firm but lax in the case of Hindus”. He further states that, this reading is strengthened when one notices that action is still awaited on reports on riots at Jabalpur (1961), Ranchi (1967), Bhiwandi (1970), Jamshedpur (1979), Meerut (1982) and Bhagalpur (1989) where “Hindu extremists were found to be the instigators”, along with “politicians and police officials” . In some cases, “Muslim fundamentalists, too were involved”. Now, what message does this transmit down the line?
Communalising terror also means that only certain kind of terror and terror groups are considered, and one is blind to all the others. Does an incident need a bomb to be blasted to be counted as act of terror? Isn’t genocide an act of terror? Isn’t planned targeting of communities, with the connivance of the “no-nonsense police” an act of terror? Isn’t the fact that 3,660 families are still living in 69 temporary colonies (as admitted by the Gujarat government before the National Commission of Minorities) even five years after they were displaced as a result of the worst-ever communal riots in 2002, an act of great terror.
The author in the ToI article says that “the dimensions of jihadi terror are transnational”, and says that we need “quality intelligence from the neighbourhood to confront terrorism”. But, I would say, what we urgently need is to stop this practise of viewing violence and extremism with coloured lens and communalising issues. Let us remember that the roots of violence – be it terrorism, or domestic violence or communal violence is the same. By communalising these issues, we are falling into the same trap!

We are like this only…

You wake up in the morning to the smell of brewing coffee. As you await your morning dose of newspaper, you decide to freshen up. You take those first few sleepy steps to the wash basin and suddenly you see RED and stop in fright….

But then you continue again, because you have to be brave, you have to wash your face, you have to brush your teeth, and you have to face those red worms that come along with the water, YOU HAVE NO OTHER ALTERNATIVE!!!

Dear friends, this is no scene from a horror movie, but a daily reality for those of us living around P.L.Lokhande Marg in Chembur. We are served with muddy water by the municipal corporation, filled with muck and different kinds of worms. They come in different shapes and sizes, but the wriggly squiggly squirmy red worms are the most common.

All our taps resemble wounded soldiers (well, they must all be deeply wounded – facing attack from the worms day in and day out). They are bandaged with different kind of filters – white cloth filters, plastic filters and fibre filters. But they fail miserably to stop the ingenious worms who make their way through the taps, into the water and straight into our unsuspecting mouths. A white cloth filter takes only a few minutes to become dark brown. I have taken a few pictures to share our story with you. I emptied out the worms from one of the tap filters into a basin and took some photos. (WARNING: Some of these images may cause dysentery, cholera and typhoid. Please view them only under medical supervision).

To see more photos click here.

An article in the Times of India, four years back (July 10, 2003) had reported about a study, which was conducted by the Society for a Clean Environment (Socleen) and funded by the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA). The study which did random testing of piped water samples found that the level of fecal coliform (bacteria found in excreta)— one of the most important indicators of the safety of drinking water —was 1600 fecal coliform (fc) per 100 ml of water in P.L. Lokhande Marg, while the Bureau of Indian Standards’ safe norm is 10 fc per 100 ml.
The report also said that some of Chembur’s P.L. Lokhande Marg’s housing societies had the “worst water quality, with 70 per cent of the samples found to be unpotable”.

So friends, four years on, the situation has not changed. And as the famous by-line goes “we are like this only”. Probably, in another four years, I will post some more photos of the water here. Now I have to rush – I need to visit my neighbours and friends from the area who have been hospitalised with jaundice, dysentery, typhoid and various other afflictions, which the doctors here very comfortingly say” don’t worry, its very common in your area”. Untill next time, pray for us!!!

SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!!!

Everday scores of Indians in every part of this large country are turned away from hospitals, because they don’t have the money for treatment. And every single day many Indians don’t even go to a medical care facility because they know that they cannot afford the costs. And everyday, thousands of Indians fall into poverty because they sold and spent all their possesions for accessing medical treatment. WHY IS THAT INSPITE OF HAVING THE KNOWLEDGE AND TECHNOLOGY, MILLIONS OF INDIANS ARE STILL DEPRIVED OF ITS BENEFITS? Is this the failure of democracy? Have we failed as a civilisation? Have we lost our basic human values?

Yesterday’s Mumbai Mirror (4 September 2007), carried an article about a poet’s wife planning to sell off her parent’s house to meet the medical treatment costs of her husband. Do we need to see people become homeless for availing medical treatment? Do they need to live on the streets once the treatment is over. Or, in case he doesn’t get well soon, where will they go once the money runs out? SHAME ON ALL OF US FOR LETTING THIS HAPPEN. And everyday, many many many people around us face the same plight. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME.

When they came for the gypsies,
I did not speak, for I was not a gypsy. When they came for the Jews,
I did not speak because I wasn’t a Jew.

When they came for the Catholics,
I did not speak, for I was not a Catholic.

When they came for the …….
I did not speak, for I was not a ……..

And when they came for me,
there was no one left to speak.