Last week, I met the best and worst of Indian doctors. I had to rush to the Punjab because my 92-year-old father was in intensive care. A cocktail of ailments forced doctors to put him on a ventilator. The neurosurgeon told me an MRI would be necessary to see if the brain had been damaged because he was neither speaking nor moving. However, as my father came off the ventilator, he began to regain his senses and the neurosurgeon cancelled the scan.
At the other end of the spectrum, a spinal surgeon had earlier diagnosed him as suffering from lumbar spinal stenosis and urged surgery. Spinal surgery on a frail old man?
In India, as the controversy over corruption in the medical profession snowballs following a scathing article in the British Medical Journal, it is the latter kind of doctor who predominates, the kind who puts patients through unnecessary diagnostic tests and procedures.
The article, by Dr David Berger, an Australian doctor who worked for six months as a volunteer in India, described how kickbacks are routine. He spoke of “needless” deaths. Dr Berger’s experience merely confirms what many Indians have long suspected: that X-rays, MRIs, CT scans, ultra-sonographies, and ECGs are routinely prescribed for patients who did not need them.
For years, they have read horror stories about unwarranted hysterectomies, stent procedures and appendectomies being carried out. Darker still, they have heard of doctors in private hospitals being given “quotas” – the amount of revenue they need to generate every month.
For every patient, this unethical behaviour is unacceptable. For poor Indians, it is a calamity. Fear of a serious illness in the family keeps them awake because they know it will ruin them financially.
The suicide statistics for 2013 show that 72 Indians kill themselves every day due to illness, the second largest number after the 89 who kill themselves over family problems. My hunch is that many of them committed suicide because of concerns over debt caused by their illness.
To inflict unnecessary medical expenses on the poor is a huge betrayal of trust. The poor are not even familiar with the concept of getting a second opinion; they revere and trust their doctor.
Corruption in the medical profession is a global challenge but given that corruption generally can be found in the tiniest spaces in India, it can safely be presumed it must be a whole lot worse here. Transparency International has found that the health care sector in India is the country’s second most corrupt institution, after the police.
Fortunately, the British Medical Journal has launched a campaign against corruption in medicine which will begin with a focus on India in the belief that if it can be reduced there it can be reduced anywhere. This is a reasonable assumption given that corruption in India extends to the stage where some medical students give bribes to get into medical school and later to pass their exams.
Dr Berger’s article has struck a chord, even though it’s a shame that it took an Australian doctor to wake people up. It’s a good time to tackle this corruption. India has a new government, swept into power on an anti-corruption wave. It seems inclined to act rather than merely talk.
For a start, it needs to provide regulatory oversight of both the private and public sectors. It’s shocking that there has only been self-regulation for so long. Without specified standards and codified guidelines on professional behaviour, no accountability is possible and no punishment for those who break the rules.
A national watchdog would be useful, a place where patients and relatives can go for an expert decision on their question, or where people can report bribe-taking and unethical behaviour by a doctor.
The Medical Council of India must strike off any doctor who is found guilty of this sort of misconduct. Its existing Ethics Committee has been lax and its current director cannot even say how many doctors have been struck off in the past, if any.
And of course a campaign to make the public aware of this danger would be hugely helpful. At the moment consumers do a doctor’s bidding blindly; replacing blind trust with reasonable doubt would be a small but important start in changing the doctor-patient relationship.
Thanks to his good doctors, my father is out of intensive care and even moving around. Had he gone along with the doctor who wanted to poke around in his spine, he would have been bedridden, at best. What’s worrying is that the happy outcome was purely down to chance. That needs to change.
Amrit Dhillon is a freelance journalist in New Delhi
Match info
Deccan Gladiators 87-8
Asif Khan 25, Dwayne Bravo 2-16
Maratha Arabians 89-2
Chadwick Walton 51 not out
Arabians won the final by eight wickets
Fixtures
50-over match
UAE v Lancashire, starts at 10am
Champion County match
MCC v Surrey, four-day match, starting on Sunday, March 24, play starts at 10am
Both matches are at ICC Academy, Dubai Sports City. Admission is free.
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Quick pearls of wisdom
Focus on gratitude: And do so deeply, he says. “Think of one to three things a day that you’re grateful for. It needs to be specific, too, don’t just say ‘air.’ Really think about it. If you’re grateful for, say, what your parents have done for you, that will motivate you to do more for the world.”
Know how to fight: Shetty married his wife, Radhi, three years ago (he met her in a meditation class before he went off and became a monk). He says they’ve had to learn to respect each other’s “fighting styles” – he’s a talk it-out-immediately person, while she needs space to think. “When you’re having an argument, remember, it’s not you against each other. It’s both of you against the problem. When you win, they lose. If you’re on a team you have to win together.”
World Cup final
Who: France v Croatia
When: Sunday, July 15, 7pm (UAE)
TV: Game will be shown live on BeIN Sports for viewers in the Mena region
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
The specs
Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
Power: 480kW
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)
On sale: Now
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Key 2013/14 UAE Motorsport dates
October 4: Round One of Rotax Max Challenge, Al Ain (karting)
October 1: 1 Round One of the inaugural UAE Desert Championship (rally)
November 1-3: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (Formula One)
November 28-30: Dubai International Rally
January 9-11: 24Hrs of Dubai (Touring Cars / Endurance)
March 21: Round 11 of Rotax Max Challenge, Muscat, Oman (karting)
April 4-10: Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge (Endurance)
How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
- The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
- The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
- The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
- The Milky Bar white chocolate Egg Hunt Pack contains eight eggs at 7.7g of sugar per egg
- The Cadbury Creme Egg contains 26g of sugar per 40g egg
My Cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim Statovci
Pushkin Press
RESULTS
5pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Maiden (PA) Dh 70,000 (Dirt) 1,600m
Winner: Samau Xmnsor, Abdul Aziz Al Balushi (jockey), Ibrahim Al Hadhrami (trainer)
5.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner: Ottoman, Szczepan Mazur, Abdallah Al Hammadi
6pm: Maiden (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 1,800m
Winner: Sharkh, Patrick Cosgrave, Helal Al Alawi
6.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh 85,000 (D) 1,800m
Winner: Yaraa, Fernando Jara, Majed Al Jahouri
7pm: Handicap (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 2,000m
Winner: Maaly Al Reef, Bernardo Pinheiro, Abdallah Al Hammadi
7.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 1,000m
Winner: Jinjal, Fabrice Veron, Ahmed Al Shemaili
8pm: Handicap (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 1,000m
Winner: Al Sail, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel