People with terminal illness are often financially stressed too

Often families have to make tough decisions while a dear one is undergoing treatment for a terminal illness. And most often the crucial factor governing the decision for enhanced treatment could be a financial one. Unable to cough up more money the families sometimes give up on their dear ones. Medical personnel, hospital managements and the government need to put their heads together to promulgate measures that would make life less cumbersome for families of patients who are improving with treatment but lack the financial clout to take the treatment to its entirety. Government and societal support system may help them in their hour of need.

As a doctor working in the ICU tending to patients who’ve undergone surgery, I was caught between the devil and the deep sea recently. I was involved in the treatment of a 51-year old lady who had received treatment in various hospitals for pancreatic cancer, for which her family had already spent a fortune. She had come to us for surgical rectification of a complication that had arisen as fallout of an operation she had undergone earlier. Not in the best of health, having been in and out of hospitals for quite some time, she was not in an ideal physical condition to undergo another major surgery, which was however imperative. After surgery she suffered a setback on the form of heart failure, which almost placed her at death’s door. Prompt intervention including ventilation saw her improving over subsequent days, much to her treating doctors’ gratification.

Just as we thought that she was turning the corner, her husband demanded that all treatment be withheld. He claimed to have ‘exhausted all resources treating his wife for years’. Though it was a tough decision, which he was guilty about, he had no option but to give up on his wife for want of resources to continue with the treatment.

Health

January 4, 2020

Do doctors treat unnecessarily?

There’s no professional badly so vilified these days as a doctor. Allegations viz: ‘doctors continue to treat patients who are dead on the ventilator’, ‘doctors continue to treat patients even when they’re convinced of the futility of treatment’. These allegations are often made baselessly against medical personnel alleged greed for the big buck. I attempt here to dispel these allegations.

Before one stones doctors, people doing so must realize that doctors, often hesitantly, and against clinical sense, ethics and conscience are compelled to ‘flog tired horses’, as the following incident vouches for.

As part of a team of gastrointestinal surgeons, I was recently involved in treating a 35-year-old medical professional who was diagnosed with cancer of the large bowel. He was scheduled for surgery to remove the cancer-affected organ. Surgery was in vain as the cancer had spread to his entire abdomen. Things looked bleak for the youth, who wanted his doctors to ‘do something’.

Health

By George Jacob

September 16, 2019

The Pros and Cons of the NMC Act

Healthcare dispensation in India has not exactly been in the best of health of late. It has been at the receiving end of numerous symptoms viz: corporatisation and its fallout, reluctance among doctors to serve in the hinterlands, privatization of medical education and, corruption within the ‘watchtower’ of practice of medicine in India—the Medical Council of India (MCI). It is imperative that this vital, yet ailing sector be nursed back to health and vitality.

The BJP-led NDA government brought in the National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill, which was passed by the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha on August 1 and July 29, 2019 respectively to become an Act. The Act, which will repeal the Indian Medical Council Act 1956, was not received well by India’s medical fraternity. Doctors owing allegiance to, and exhorted by the Indian Medial Association (IMA), struck work across India.

An earlier version of the Bill was introduced during the previous Lok Sabha and later referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare. It lapsed with the dissolution of that Lok Sabha. Is the bill disastrous, as the doctors led by the IMA make it out to be?

Health, Law, National

By George Jacob

June 14, 2019

Unwinding in Nature’s Arms

I have been slipping into a rut of late—as a victim of routine and the mundane. Moreover, the wedding of my older daughter, a gruelling ordeal that modern weddings are bound to be these days, had my life on the leash! I badly needed a break.

My son-in-law, who was excited to kick-start a family, broached the idea. He suggested we go on a jaunt to unwind. We chose Valparai, a quaintly scenic place on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. My wife and I had visited the place as medical students. As part of an ‘all-boys’ trip after my medical course, I had passed by the place once more on the way to a magical place, the Grass Hills, close to Valparai.

Travel

By George Jacob

June 5, 2019

Will Nipah have Kerala shiver this year too?

The state of Kerala proudly flaunts the tagline—God’s own Country—conferred on her, besides other reasons, for her enviable track record on the health front. Kerala’s health indices are comparable to, or even better those of developed nations, including the Scandinavian nations—considered the healthiest in the world.

But, frequent fever epidemics have been chipping away at Kerala’s reputation as “the healthiest Indian state.” These epidemics inflict severe physical and financial strain on the citizens and the government.

Features, Health

By George Jacob

May 7, 2019

Is Kochi Monsoon-ready?

With a harsh summer nearly behind us, the south-west monsoon is round the corner. The south-west monsoon of 2018, which had the state go through unparalleled calamity, is fresh in our memory.

The flood which submerged half of Kerala’s villages had affected one-sixth of its population. By late August, it had claimed 500 people, with many missing and unaccounted for. On the economic front, Kerala suffered an estimated loss of US$ 2.8 billion by way of damage to 100,000 buildings, thousands of acres of agricultural land and crops, about 10,000 kms of roads and highways and 280 bridges.

Health, Life, People

By George Jacob