This was published in The Better India on June 13 2017. Here is the link, and below is an extract: “Looking at the bigger picture, it is important that India does not stop here, but that we aim for prioritizing and making, at the soonest, all healthcare services (and not just generic medicines) accessible and affordable for all… Continue reading India’s efforts to make medicines affordable for citizens
This was published in ‘The Better India’ on May 6 2017. Here is the link, and below is an excerpt. New research from Harvard Medical School in the US, where too the ‘profit motive’ gets disproportionately blamed, emphasizes what could be called system factors: limited resources, high workload, limited motivation, and limited accountability. These put… Continue reading What we can learn from hospitals which have successfully brought down their C-section rates
This was published in Huffington Post India on March 20, 2017. Here is the link, and below is an excerpt: In our country, discussions over this most crucial trade-off rarely happen in communications between persons having terminal illness and their family (or doctors). To quote Gawande, modern medicine is good at staving off death with… Continue reading Transitioning from Delayed Death to Dignified Death, and How Kerala Shows the Way
This appeared in theWire.in on 15 March 2017. Here is the link. Below is an excerpt: While the medical community regularly (and rightfully) demands and expect protection from mob violence, is it morally justified that it looks the other way when other citizens are subjected to similar violence? Mob bullying and violence are among the most deplorable aspects… Continue reading Doctors, Academics, and Artists Bear the Brunt of Mob Violence in India: Here’s How They Can Help Each Other
This was carried by HuffPost India on Nov 28 2016. Here is the link, and below is an excerpt. “It’s because, just like with demonetisation, the nation leaves them with no other choice. We let government hospitals crumble, and force our poor to go to those, ostensibly for the “greater benefit of the nation”. Because… Continue reading Demonetisation and Public Health: Only a Welfare-Intensive Budget 2017 Can Now Help BJP Save Face
This was published on Nov 24, in theWire.in. Here is the link. Below is an extract: [Just like the demonetisation policy] It was a hastily drafted Bill, barely a page long, but ‘extending to the whole of British India’ and coming into force immediately. It was referred to a Select Committee (of four British and two… Continue reading Black Money and the Black Death: What The Indian Govt Can Learn from the Epidemic Diseases Act 1897
This was published in the Times of India as an op-ed, on Oct 13 2016. Here is the link. Below is an extract: “Few phrases in the public health literature capture the kind of raw agony that ‘catastrophic health expenditure’ does. I know that well, for my family is a rickshaw-walla’s family. A fractured bone… Continue reading Modi’s Mom and a Chaiwallah’s Mom: The Case for Universal Health Coverage in India
