Authenticity of medical system: A serious issue?

The System

Unlike the most other professions, the road to becoming a doctor is harder, with little rewards in the beginning until the Doctor establishes him. It all starts from studying and burning the midnight oil right from class 11^th, securing good marks, and topping medical examinations and amongst baffling percentage of reservation for some, one finally gets a seat in a medical college. The struggle just begins there for a person pursuing medicine thereafter, extraordinary amount of admission fees, donation running into 7 and even 8 digits and after that facing the challenge of your life for the next 8 years, rarely getting the time to look beyond books. They become a doctor but sometimes wonder where all these years passed by and when they look around all their non-medicine friends have already started to earn money and settling down in life, for a doctor the fight to stand on his own feet starts now.

The government hospitals

Many Doctors associate with government hospitals at the beginning of their career, in order to use their medical knowledge and give back to the society. But few years down the line poor facilities, inhumanly long working hours and little financial reward gets the better of the most and they have to shift to private sector to first try and cover their cost of education. No one really cares that government medical facilities should be best in the country, in sufficient number in accordance to a population of 1.2 billion and paying those doctors who sacrifice their peak years better than any private hospital, the government has enough resources for that but little intentions of valuing those doctors.

The transition

Here is where the private, five star hospitals step in and give the doctors what they actually deserve, but at what cost? A poor can never think of stepping into these hospitals, a middle class person with a health insurance knows the policy seems good on paper, but in real world is just a piece of paper offering minimal discounts like they offer in those fast food chains. So if you are rich, you can probably afford that treatment not without those unnecessary scans they conduct at astonishing prices to shoot up your bill high, it’s like they are saying you have too much money, spare some to keep are medical equipments well oiled. I came across a case where a private hospital kept a dead body on ventilator for days in hope that patient will come back to life, it’s amazing they were more optimistic than the patient’s family; maybe the family didn’t love the patient enough.

Conclusion

This situation is only going to grow worse with time as the population increases and our country already can’t sustain with the meager resources. It’s better the government wakes up from the self induced coma and create an infrastructure to open an A.I.I.M.S like institution in every tier 2 and tier 3 city of India and finds a way to keep the best doctors in India by paying them at par with the private hospitals here and even in abroad. If the government doesn’t invest in health sector it just shows how little it values the life and well being of the average citizen her, our population can be blamed for that, but there are no laws in place to control the population either.