Wednesday, Dec 01, 2004
Wednesday, Dec 01, 2004 |
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Mysore
By Our Staff Correspondent
MYSORE, NOV. 30. "Medical tourism" and "hi-tech hospitals" may be the Government's new mantra to boost India's reputation of providing super speciality health facilities at a fraction of the international cost. It is, however, debatable whether they will contribute towards improving the country's primary health care sector. A few doctors feel that the Government should not neglect primary health care centres in its attempt to establish super-speciality hospitals.
Doubts
N. Ramesh and T.N. Manjunath of the Mysore Grahakara Parishat (MGP) have come out strongly on the subject and expressed doubts whether expensive health care will lead to better health. "Speciality and super-speciality facilities have their own place no doubt, but the Government and society must not lose sight of the perspective and end objective of providing quality health care to the local community first. The most effective way of improving domestic health care standards in India is by improving the primary health care sector," they said.
Medical tourism
The MGP pointed out that is undeniable that health care in India was going hi-tech and super speciality hospitals were emerging not only in major cities but also in smaller towns. They drew attention to an article in the Journal of American Medical Association in which a respected public health expert from Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health analysed results from hospitals all over the U.S. and came out with some startling revelations. The findings are pertinent to the Indian scenario as well and the two doctors cited the Amercian study to point out that death due to physicians' intervention was the third leading cause of death in the U.S. after deaths due to heart diseases and cancer.
Adverse effects
Dr. Ramesh and Dr. Manjunath pointed out that the adverse economic effects of wrong treatment were staggering. They said that according to the report, in the U.S. wrong treatment led to 116 million extra visits to physicians, 77 million extra prescriptions, 17 million emergency department visits, 8 million hospitalisations, and 3 million long-term hospitalisations all costing around $ 77 billion. The two doctors concluded that the most effective way to improve health care standards in India was to improve the primary health care sector first. They said that the report showed that too much emphasis on speciality care at the expense of general care would lead to depletion of resources.
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