May 17, 2013

Modern Healthcare needs a touch of humanity


I just came to read this title "Modern Healthcare Touching Lives !!!". I was wondering is it the "so-called" Modernisation which is the problem or solution. Like everything having good-&-bad, modernisation also has the same attributes. Definitely, Healthcare is more on the positive & solution-side. I don't want to talk more on the problem side of Modernisation, but will prefer to talk on "Modern Healthcare Touching Lives".

I have been doing rounds of many hospitals for quite sometime. But I believe even if Healthcare became Modern enough and capable to solve all the possible ailments, its not enough. It will just give depth to it and Healthcare-community can boost about it. But what the society need is not just depth but


  • Make Life Easy - use innovative ways :- When a person falls ill, its not that the person is sick. Its tied with lives of many other persons around including person's family. As a part of society, we need to use modern techniques to make life easier for him. One such example is, patients having Dialysis its a  regular day-to-day affair for the patient & family, additional services from Hospitals/Dialysis centers like pick-and-drop can really ease the life of these patients. Nephrolife is one such hospital, I am aware off, which offers this service.
  • Increase Breadth of Healthcare - Reach Masses :- I don't have statistics for this, even if I get some statistics from internet regarding the households which doesn't have any Medical health care facility within 10 km, it will be with Std. Error. But one which all will agree it still doesn't cover at least 30% of human masses. I know of many ways like online health care guidance, temporary mobile kiosks in rural villages, Mobile healthcare vans, etc being tried. I salute them for running these initiatives. Still will it cover all human masses. We need much more effort here.
  • Affordability :- For many of the poors, health care is not affordable and there is no denying fact. Many hospitals and healthcare community personnel are trying to make it affordable in their own ways. E.g. Devi Shetty's Narayana Hrudayalaya for heart surgeries, Arvind Eye Hospitals for eyes and many others. We need to do more.
  • Insured / Not insured ?? :- Most of the people are not insured for the healthcare in India. So once someone is sick in the family, its not just pain which the family has to bear but also tension w.r.t. economical condition & affordability. But is getting insured a solution ? What about the folks who are insured but with a limit ? I have noticed most of the time the insured folks are charged more by hospitals as compared to non-insured people. I understand non-insured people have to pay from their own pockets and insured people would have just paid insurance premium. But in the long term, it makes getting insurance more costly for non-insured families. 
  • Intent of Health care - Religious Conversions / Huge Profit Making :- Even though I thought I will skip this topic, I am going ahead to share my personal views. Some hospitals have good quality health care, but the intent behind seems just not healthcare. Many hospitals are too costly, Many are run with intent to convert peoples - while they are getting treated either by monetary discounts or by propaganda, etc. We need to STOP maligning the intent of human health care with these hidden malicious intents of conversion/huge profit making. Health care shouldn't be differentiated for any human on any basis - Gender, Religion, Age, Country, Wealth, even criminal/innocent. 
  • Quality Healthcare services :- Ok, say you have all this - You have insurance, you can afford healthcare expenses, healthcare is reachable to you, and you have all the means. But if the healthcare services are not quality even with all the means it won't help. E.g. I know of many cases, in which instead of curing wrong medicines made the case worse for the patient. For quality health care one of the such name is Apollo Hospitals
Yes Modern Healthcare is touching lives, also needs a touch of humanity not maligned with Wealth/Religion/Gender/Nationality/Anything.




This post is a part of the Apollo hospitals- Modern health care touching lives contest held at Indiblogger.

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