Health is the new disease!!!!!!!!

                                                        So writing after a long break.Many topics used to come to my mind but nothing was coming from the heart ,so I had stopped writing.You really have to experience something to actually pen down something.So here it is !

                                                        Purple is the new black!Pink is the new orange!Such fashion statements keep changing over the period of time.So does health care.Hence the title health is the new disease!What does this mean ?Health should be in reality the opposite of disease.So let me put it this way- Health care is the new disease!Now it will be more clear.

                               So my aaji had her real sister and other cousins over at her house.They had a really nice time hanging out together,playing cards,cooking food,watching marathi dramas,going out to eat food.So then her sister asked her to come over to her place.My aaji was ready with her bag packed.But that night she couldn't sleep.She was coughing the whole night.In the morning also she wasn't feeling well.So she cancelled her trip.Whole day she was feeling breathless.But calling a doctor was to be done only when necessary.But finally she was feeling so down she called my aai and they took her to the doctor.

                               The doctor wanted to admit my aaji. She was OK with it and my mom admitted her.I was supposed to go for my rural posting today ( 1 day prior ) but I stayed back.Went to visit aaji in the evening.She was looking first class.But she was not sleeping on her bed,she was sitting on the visitor's couch.She was more comfortable like this.First thing she told me and Saee ( my sister in law)

- "Have the mango milkshake kept in the fridge."She couldn't have it so somebody should have it or it will go waste.I cant resist anything related to mango but for the sake of aaji I refrained from having it.

                              Then the real complains started coming up........Why do they have to take B.P 10 times in a day? It hurts you know.Why do you need to do any blood tests everyday ? I don't want to do sonography .......I don't want to do C.T scan."जे होयचे ते होऊदे !" I don't want to do any more investigations.We tried to explain her that we need to do all these things to come to a proper diagnosis.So we as doctors have undergone 5 and a half years of training to learn that any kind of treatment should be evidence based and here mother of us doctors is telling us to give her medicines without doing any investigations.We can treat as many patients we want outside but we can't have a say in the treatment of our own family members.

                             Why this whole story? Taking blood pressure,doing blood tests, giving nebulization,putting a intra-venous catheter ,inserting a catheter for urine, all these are necessary according to the medicine protocol.But we need to know the patient's side of story too.During my internship I had to take a blood sample of an old woman not unlike my own aaji but from the village of Loni. She was so frustrated with the needle pricks she literally shouted at me and punched me in my abdomen.Ya she actually punched me , I am not lying! When I told this to my aaji she was like "I also feel like doing the same " "बरं  झालं !"- No sympathies for her granddaughter also.This is just the part where there is discomfort at the hospital.But a patient suffers from a lot apart from his illness.The hospital bill is a whole new subject in itself to talk about.

                            So are the hospitals making an ill person healthier ?Ofcourse they do ! Otherwise people will stop going over there only.But we need to keep the patients happy and comforted too.Aaji is having a better experience this time compared to her experience in the ICU , just the contusion on the back of her hand reminds me a lot of the punishment given to Harry Potter by proffesor Umbridge.She had asked him to write the the line "I will not tell lies" by a pen which used his own blood and engraved the words on the back of his hand.

Some questions open for discussion:

Can we make the hospital stay more comfortable for the patient?

How can we reduce the monetary burden of health care ?

Can we have the same treatment in government hospitals ass we have in private hospitals?

Can we have "Health for All"?