After the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, attempts were made to understand the effects of methyl isocyanide so that the victims could avail better treatment. However, time and again, relevant information from medical surveys was kept hidden.
Domestic pharmaceutical firms continue to operate under the influence of the strategy of global integration of the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare. The link between domestic firms and public sector research organisations is the weakest link in the domestic pharmaceutical industry due to misguided policies in competence-building and innovation system-building after India accepted the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement in 1995. The government should rethink its strategies to get domestic firms to contribute to system-building activities and prioritise investment into the upgrading of processes of learning and building competence.
This article discusses the understanding of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) among medical professionals in the patriarchal framework and how women experience infantalisation at the hands of doctors.
Ayushman Bharat holds the promise to advance equity both within households as well as across social groups. However, the geographical inequities characteristic of India’s healthcare provisioning need to be overhauled first for the scheme to be more equitable.
The National Health Policy, 2017 reflects the perfunctory attitude towards public health, so deeply entrenched among the mandarins of the health ministry. The policy paves the way for the contraction of public healthcare systems, thereby reducing the government’s involvement in the delivery of health services, and facilitates the dominance of the private sector in curative care. However, in the absence of a robust public healthcare system, the goal of achieving “healthcare for all” becomes even more onerous.
Public Health and Private Wealth: Stem Cells, Surrogates, and Other Strategic Bodies edited by Sarah Hodges and Mohan Rao,New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016; pp xv + 283, ₹850.
After 70 years of independence, India continues to languish at the bottom of the comity of nations on every parameter that constitutes real development. The widening economic disparities and relentless violence against Dalits, Adivasis and minorities demonstrate that B R Ambedkar’s dream of social and economic equality accompanying political equality remains elusive.
All authors were formerly at Council of Scientific and Industrial Research HQ, New Delhi. This study looks at the available life-saving treatments for heart attacks and ischaemic heart diseases administered in India, focusing on streptokinase and finding that it is the life-saving clot-buster for the majority of patients. This brings to light that the surgical intervention of angioplasty is more of an income-biased treatment. Public-funded research and development of indigenous streptokinase has directly enabled access to treatment, especially for economically challenged patients.
More than 20 lakh patients of ischaemic heart disease-led myocardial infarction can benefit from a life-saving clot-buster drug in India. At the turn of the century, its availability in India was poor and no domestic production existed until the first Council of Scientific and Industrial Research licensee began production in 2001-02. Its price was less than half that of the drug made by a multinational company, the major supplier in the market at that time. Its supply increased to 1,20,000 doses in 2011 after other producers entered the market. Prices dropped by more than 50%. The economic impact of streptokinase technologies, or the value that would be lost if the licensee's streptokinase did not exist, is about `580 crore for the patients.
The author is a critical feminist medical anthropologist who has been engaged in ethnographic research on women's health issues in India for the past 25 years. Drawing from her own research experiences, this paper explores the methodologies entailed in research as a feminist critical medical anthropologist: by unpacking core methodological assumptions behind each component of her disciplinary position, introducing methodologies at each level--sociocultural anthropology, medical anthropology, critical medical anthropology, and finally feminist critical medical anthropology. It also examines how she has operationalised the fusion of these methodological approaches in her own research projects. The ways in which the findings from this research have contributed to our understanding of gender and can be useful for improving healthcare for women are also discussed.
The Rapid Survey on Children shows a new trend of an increased access to healthcare by marginalised communities like Dalits, Adivasis and Other Backward Classes which have made substantial gains in the last decade. However much needs to be achieved in the realm of nutrition and sanitation where these communities remain acutely deprived.
