My recent experience in the hospital and the just released book of Allen & Unwin "Selling sickness -How drug companies are turning us all into patients" made me to write this note. Unfortunately there is none written similarly the Indian scenario in detail. No print or visual media giants will be interested to write against multinationals, still I am sure there is some out there writing for the common man.
"India, emerging as a potential market as well as industry for Health tourism and drug manufacturing", this being quoted as an example to show her recent economic growth by many writers.
Let me quote Robyn Meredith in her book "The Elephant and the Dragon":
"A biotech company........, located in an unlikely spot a three hours' drive east of Mumbai, provides more evidence of the economic revolution. Getting to its labs takes a sturdy vehicle: you leave the highway and zigzag up a dirt road into hills where locals shoo goats out the way of oncoming traffic. Around a bend, a starkly white minimalist building emerges from the ancient, dusty landscape like an optical illusion. Behind a tall gate and security checkpoint, hundreds of white-coated scientists are racing to invent new drugs. They are part of India's thriving biotechnology industry, which began as vehicle for widespread production of generic drugs and copycatting of the other drug companies' inventions but has grown into innovative industry. India already has seventy-five pharmaceutical plants approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-more than any nation except the US itself. Meanwhile, big western drug companies are tapping India's well-trained doctors to conduct clinical trials for drugs under development."
Private hospitals are ranked according to its 'structure' rather than the 'infrastructure'. Experienced doctor's name or medical facilities are not highlighted but car parking facilities, cable connection, centralised A/c, 24 hour running hot water etc are given in the hospital brochure. The tourism vocabularies being lavishly used in health industry may be defined as 'health tourism'. If you check the literature from famous hospitals it is visible: Suite room, standard room, single occupancy, check-in and check-out time etc. minimum of three consulting doctors visit you each day apart from the duty doctors, be any disease. A dietician takes care of your food (room service) and physiotherapist gives you tips on exercises you may or may not needed. The psychiatrist was missing, could give some tips on mental stress, managing pain etc.
As mentioned in their prologue by the Australian authors:
"The marketing strategies of the world's biggest drug companies now aggressively target the healthy and the well. The ups and downs of daily life have become mental disorders, common complaints are transformed into frightening conditions, and more and more ordinary people are turned into patients. With promotional campaigns that exploit our deepest fears of death, decay and diseases, the $500 billion pharmaceutical industry is literally changing what it means to be human. Rightly rewarded for saving life and reducing suffering, the global drug giants are no longer content selling medicines only to the ill. Because as Wall Street knows well, there's a lot of money to be made telling healthy people they are sick.
At a time when many of us are leading longer, healthier and more vital lives than our ancestors, saturation advertising and slick 'awareness-raising' campaigns are turning the worried well into the worried sick. Mild problems are painted as serious disease, so shyness becomes a sign of social anxiety disorder and pre-menstrual tension a mental illness called pre-menstrual dysphonic disorder. Everyday sexual difficulties are seen as sexual dysfunctions, the natural change of life is a disease of hormone deficiency called the menopause, and distracted office workers now have adult ADD. Just being 'at risk' of an illness has become a 'disease' in its own right, so healthy middle-aged women now have a silent bone disease called osteoporosis, and fit middle –aged men a lifelong condition called high cholesterol.
With many health problems, there are people at the severe end of the spectrum suffering genuine illness, or at very high risk of it, who may benefit greatly from a medical label and powerful medication. Yet for the relatively healthy people who are spread across the rest of the spectrum, a label and a drug may bring great inconvenience, enormous costs, and the very real danger of sometimes deadly side effects. This vast terrain has become the new global marketplace of potential patients-tens of millions of people-a key target of the drug industry's multibillion-dollar promotional budgets."
Health or medical insurance companies are the other big culprits who promotes mere out patient in to a chronic inpatient. There is a PRO or Customer Service Executive behind the registration counter of every hospital. You will be delighted to show your insurance card to them and that is it. There are 'executive' check-up for the financially healthy, to check you're BP, BS etc. which will cost you less than few hundred in a normal clinical laboratory.
During the recent International conference of Dermatologists held at Bangalore, I was trying to promote our new edition of our book STD & AIDS with one senior doctor, he responded interestingly: "There is nothing major new development or finding in AIDS except the patient count, but there are many things happening in cosmetic area." True, pharma giants were made huge displays of their drugs, equipments etc. spending lakhs of rupees sponsoring thousands of doctors. The three day conference were attended by thousands doctors from all over India held in a fully air-conditioned 1,50,000 sqft hall specially made. There were separate hall for the accompanying family members. 90% of the top hotels were booked by Pharmaceutical companies and occupied by practicing doctors. The rest of the 10% were post graduate students! The products in display were mostly new skin care lotions, hair care therapies, complete beauty clinics, cosmetic surgery packages etc, etc.
No wonder Rs. 1,50,000 is the earning for certain doctors in a month and some salaried patient in a year. Both pay, may be the same tax. Because consultation fee received are not accounted and paid are not exempted !
Jaiho
"India, emerging as a potential market as well as industry for Health tourism and drug manufacturing", this being quoted as an example to show her recent economic growth by many writers.
Let me quote Robyn Meredith in her book "The Elephant and the Dragon":
"A biotech company........, located in an unlikely spot a three hours' drive east of Mumbai, provides more evidence of the economic revolution. Getting to its labs takes a sturdy vehicle: you leave the highway and zigzag up a dirt road into hills where locals shoo goats out the way of oncoming traffic. Around a bend, a starkly white minimalist building emerges from the ancient, dusty landscape like an optical illusion. Behind a tall gate and security checkpoint, hundreds of white-coated scientists are racing to invent new drugs. They are part of India's thriving biotechnology industry, which began as vehicle for widespread production of generic drugs and copycatting of the other drug companies' inventions but has grown into innovative industry. India already has seventy-five pharmaceutical plants approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-more than any nation except the US itself. Meanwhile, big western drug companies are tapping India's well-trained doctors to conduct clinical trials for drugs under development."
Private hospitals are ranked according to its 'structure' rather than the 'infrastructure'. Experienced doctor's name or medical facilities are not highlighted but car parking facilities, cable connection, centralised A/c, 24 hour running hot water etc are given in the hospital brochure. The tourism vocabularies being lavishly used in health industry may be defined as 'health tourism'. If you check the literature from famous hospitals it is visible: Suite room, standard room, single occupancy, check-in and check-out time etc. minimum of three consulting doctors visit you each day apart from the duty doctors, be any disease. A dietician takes care of your food (room service) and physiotherapist gives you tips on exercises you may or may not needed. The psychiatrist was missing, could give some tips on mental stress, managing pain etc.
As mentioned in their prologue by the Australian authors:
"The marketing strategies of the world's biggest drug companies now aggressively target the healthy and the well. The ups and downs of daily life have become mental disorders, common complaints are transformed into frightening conditions, and more and more ordinary people are turned into patients. With promotional campaigns that exploit our deepest fears of death, decay and diseases, the $500 billion pharmaceutical industry is literally changing what it means to be human. Rightly rewarded for saving life and reducing suffering, the global drug giants are no longer content selling medicines only to the ill. Because as Wall Street knows well, there's a lot of money to be made telling healthy people they are sick.
At a time when many of us are leading longer, healthier and more vital lives than our ancestors, saturation advertising and slick 'awareness-raising' campaigns are turning the worried well into the worried sick. Mild problems are painted as serious disease, so shyness becomes a sign of social anxiety disorder and pre-menstrual tension a mental illness called pre-menstrual dysphonic disorder. Everyday sexual difficulties are seen as sexual dysfunctions, the natural change of life is a disease of hormone deficiency called the menopause, and distracted office workers now have adult ADD. Just being 'at risk' of an illness has become a 'disease' in its own right, so healthy middle-aged women now have a silent bone disease called osteoporosis, and fit middle –aged men a lifelong condition called high cholesterol.
With many health problems, there are people at the severe end of the spectrum suffering genuine illness, or at very high risk of it, who may benefit greatly from a medical label and powerful medication. Yet for the relatively healthy people who are spread across the rest of the spectrum, a label and a drug may bring great inconvenience, enormous costs, and the very real danger of sometimes deadly side effects. This vast terrain has become the new global marketplace of potential patients-tens of millions of people-a key target of the drug industry's multibillion-dollar promotional budgets."
Health or medical insurance companies are the other big culprits who promotes mere out patient in to a chronic inpatient. There is a PRO or Customer Service Executive behind the registration counter of every hospital. You will be delighted to show your insurance card to them and that is it. There are 'executive' check-up for the financially healthy, to check you're BP, BS etc. which will cost you less than few hundred in a normal clinical laboratory.
During the recent International conference of Dermatologists held at Bangalore, I was trying to promote our new edition of our book STD & AIDS with one senior doctor, he responded interestingly: "There is nothing major new development or finding in AIDS except the patient count, but there are many things happening in cosmetic area." True, pharma giants were made huge displays of their drugs, equipments etc. spending lakhs of rupees sponsoring thousands of doctors. The three day conference were attended by thousands doctors from all over India held in a fully air-conditioned 1,50,000 sqft hall specially made. There were separate hall for the accompanying family members. 90% of the top hotels were booked by Pharmaceutical companies and occupied by practicing doctors. The rest of the 10% were post graduate students! The products in display were mostly new skin care lotions, hair care therapies, complete beauty clinics, cosmetic surgery packages etc, etc.
No wonder Rs. 1,50,000 is the earning for certain doctors in a month and some salaried patient in a year. Both pay, may be the same tax. Because consultation fee received are not accounted and paid are not exempted !
Jaiho
