Health care hue and cry – Shortage of doctors.

Shortage of doctors

India produces some of the best doctors in the world. A lot of developed countries depend on Indians for their supply of capable doctors. Then why the hue and cry in India itself over medical treatment and negligence.

Firstly, becoming a doctor takes years of formal education. And while a young person is studying, he isn’t contributing much to the family financially. Remember India being a country of poor people? Families might spend savings into medical education which is subsidised by the govt heavily, but they can hardly stand lack of a working hand for a long period of time. Maybe he is completely dependent on them for all the expenses till the age of at least 25 yrs.

So, as soon as one comes out of medical college, a doctor wants to earn money and show their family that the wait was worth it.

Where is the money? private hospitals and western countries.

So, there is an apparent shortage of doctors in the hospitals meant for average Indian, that is the government hospital because they don’t pay well.

There are plenty of doctors for who can afford private health care.

About western countries. They also have shortage of doctors, or so they say. But their definition of shortage is far superior to ours.

USA has a shortage of doctors after having 25 times the number of doctors we have in India, for a population far less than ours.

So we have an acute shortage of doctors and plus no money to pay them, for the ones who would like to work for the masses in govt hospitals.

The solution provided by the govt? force them to work for free. Forced donkey is far inferior than a willing donkey.

Secondly, forcing doctors work for free by making them look like money hungry monsters is the worst solution to the problem. It perfectly fits as a political trick to sway votes. But makes for a very bad practical solution. Practising medicine takes sacrifices on daily basis and after one point, even doctors, who are human beings, want to feel that it was all worth it.

So we have acute shortage of doctors plus underpaid doctors. Which mean that an average govt doctor is over worked, under paid and as a result more prone to errors and mis judgements.

What was the patient’s fault in all of this? A patient is unfortunate to begin with. And now an overworked, underpaid unwilling battery of doctors await him.

Indian people and their elected representatives are still to realise the value of higher education and make its aspirants feel motivated.

We are still caught up in short term goals of reservation based education, reservation based employment, blame game and its politics without loosing the intent of amassing maximum number of votes. Nothing is untouchable, and open for manipulation to sway the masses, including healthcare.

(It will be series of essays, as one huge pile of words is extremely boring to read, hoping that you are not yawning, yet)

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