Re-imagining the response to non-communicable diseases in India
This article originally appeared on BMJ Blogs on December 30, 2014 under the same title. It was just another day at the primary health centre (PHC) that I work closely with in the south Indian state of Karnataka. I was in the pharmacy of the PHC, discussing the...
“Anything you get for free is not of good quality”: perceptions of generic medicines
This article originally appeared on BMJ Blogs on March 06, 2015 under the same title. The number of people with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in India is increasing with each passing year. The World Health Organization estimates that NCDs could account for nearly...
Status of AYUSH doctors in the government healthcare delivery system in India
This article originally appeared on BMJ Blogs on February 26, 2015 under the same title. AYUSH—an acronym for Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy—is a system of medicine that has been integrated into the Indian national healthcare delivery system to...
N. Devadasan on the Core Group to redesign the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana
Dr. N. Devadasan, Director and Faculty of IPH has been nominated to the MoHFW's Core Group to redesign the RSBY.
IPH Faculty among those selected in a global WHO-TDR grant
IPH has been working with Tumkur district in trying to strengthen various components of the district health system. One of the key interventions here has been to work with private practitioners in the district to better understand their integration into the National...
Presentations at 3rd National conference on tobacco or Health Mumbai
Few members from the tobacco control team participated in the 3rd National conference on tobacco or Health held at Mumbai on the 15th and 16th of December. We had three oral presentation and one poster presentation depicting the on going activities and learning from...
Technical assistance to MEMISA and the WBVHA in Darjeeling district
“If I buy medicine, then I can’t afford to pay my children’s fees”: Story of a diabetes patient from rural India
It was one of my routine visits to a PHC in rural Karnataka where I facilitate the patient counseling sessions for people with diabetes and hypertension. This PHC is 45km from the district head quarters and covers about 18,000 people. It was a busy day and the...
Laboratory Technicians Training
As part of Dr.Vijayashree's PhD( Public Private Partnership in TB Care, Tumkur District), all the lab technicians working in the Designated Microscopic Centres of Tumkur district were trained (11.12.14) at District TB Centre, Tumkur city. They were trained on the...
My Monday musings of being a “Generic”!
Author: Dr Mrunalini I am pretty well known in the country and constantly have a presence in news making headlines against the multibillion Pharmaceutical industries. I still struggle on a daily basis convincing people that I’m as good as the BIG BRANDS, and to...
Private healthcare providers threatened by the Vajpayee Arogyashree Scheme
There have been some recent newspaper reports that networks of private hospital owners have threatened to stop providing services to patients if the government of Karnataka expands the Vajpayee Arogyashree Scheme (VAS) from the poor to the rest of the population. We...
Eventually, it was loss to the community
This is a story about a Primary Health Center (PHC) and a lady doctor. An ordinary centre in the way so many of our health centers in remote parts of the country are. This unremarkable PHC is located 52 km away from the district head quarters (HQ) and 36 km away from...
Can we count on our counting systems?
A shorter version of this article appeared on BMJ Blogs on October 31, 2013 under the same title. Co-written with Himabindu G L of IPH, Bangalore. Much of the material remains unprocessed, or, if processed, unanalysed, or, if analysed, not read, or, if read, not used...
Juliet: We met, we supported and we lost…….& witnessed family getting dismantled?
This is not the first time we are writing about Juliet….but this will be the last blog we can write for her. A Call from the team member took me back to memory lane… When we first time met young Juliet (name changed) she was pregnant with severe anaemia and reluctant...
Is embracing death @ 24 so easy?
This time it was neither KG Halli nor urban health project….but Health Inc…trying to find reasons for social exclusion in Bangalore Rural district. When we entered 8x8 single room house, Jagadish was lying on the bed. We asked how he was feeling, he pushed bed sheet...
Good presentation is very important
“Good presentation is very important and I apply this concept”. This is said by one laboratory technician working in a Primary Health Center (PHC). He believes that if he provides his laboratory services in a presentable way, he can earn the trust of the people....
Is health camp an effective stratergy
Health 'camps' are one of the strategies adopted by both government and non-government organizations. This literally means that a team of health professionals 'camp' in an area to carry out a limited health intervention. For instance, government organizes...
What the numbers do not account for…..night beat in KG Halli
Life has its unique ways of showing you what you might be looking for. As a purely logistic decision, it made more sense for me to stay overnight in the community centre and this gave opportunity to observe a different side to KGHalli....after dusk. Suddenly “urban”...
Where Do I Begin (part-2)
Where Do I Begin.............. to tell the stories of urban polity ... the enduring tales of life as it is least meant to be ..... in a just fair world......? (To be sung to theme tune of Love Story) Did you read the where do I begin part-1 ?(click here) In the...
Where Do I Begin…..
Where Do I Begin... to tell the stories of urban poverty... the grimmest tales that tell of what the 'We' do to the 'we'... Where do I start...? (To be sung to theme tune of Love Story) Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or to cry......... This in an era of...
Does AADHAAR and PAN card mean RSBY card??
It was another day in the field collecting data for Health Inc project. The team reached village near Nelamangala. After meeting staff in Gram Panchayat (GP) we were asked to talk to Anganawadi teacher and take her help to identify the houses for collecting data. But...
ನನ್ನ ಸಮಸ್ಯೆಗೆ ಏನೂ ಉತ್ತರ……….?
ಆರೋಗ್ಯ-ಉಪಕೇಂದ್ರದ ಕಿರಿಯ ಮಹಿಳಾ ಅರೋಗ್ಯ ಸಹಾಯಕಿಯರು ತಮ್ಮ ಕ್ಷೇತ್ರದಲ್ಲಿ ಎದಿರುಸುತ್ತಿರುವಾ ಸಮಸ್ಯೆಗಳು ಮೇಲೆ ನಮ್ಮ ಕ್ಷೇತ್ರ ಭೇಟಿಯ ಅನುಬವಗಳು ಪ್ರಾಥಮಿಕ ಆರೋಗ್ಯ ಕೇಂದ್ರ ಮತ್ತು ಸಮುದಾಯಗಳ ನಡುವೆ ಅತ್ಯಂತ ಬಾಹ್ಯ ಮತ್ತು ಜನರ ಆರೋಗ್ಯಕ್ಕೆ ಸಂಬಧಿಸಿದ ಮೊದಲ ಆರೋಗ್ಯ ಸಂಪರ್ಕ ಕೇಂದ್ರವೆಂದರೆ ಅದು ಆರೋಗ್ಯ-ಉಪಕೇಂದ್ರ. ಪ್ರತಿ...
At last labor ward in action
The Urban health project ofInstitute of public health has begun working in KG Halli since 2009. When we came to the area, our first action was mapping all the health facilities in ward no 30. As we did the mapping we found two government facilities in the area. One...
CP or CP? Community participation or Corridors of power
A recent visit to the offices of the local government health offices and the tertiary level hospitals confirmed what I had suspected for ages, after working in the field of public health for over two decades. There are two key reasons why our public health system is...
“Global pressure and Local Commitment” India is not a polio endemic country any more
No child got affected by wild polio virus last year in India; the last reported case of polio was a two year old girl child from West Bengal on 13 January 2011. India is now said to be out of the list of polio endemic countries in the world. In the year 1988, the...
How quality health care services is possible for all?
Just want to share some of my feelings/observations during my two weeks visits to these hospitals for my parent’s treatment: Sl.No Karnataka Institute of Diabetology St.John's Medical College Hospital 1 Well management of crowded patient Very crowded but well...
Grievance redressal meeting with community and councilor at Bharathmatha Slum.
The Bharathmatha slum community is facing a Basic Problems like drinking water, drainage, sanitation, Ration card, Improper Roads, garbage. The IPH team working in the urban health project decided to conduct grievance redressal meeting, to discuss these issues and...
How difficult was it to see working anganawadi!
IPH has been working in KG Halli in order to improve quality of healthcare for people living in this ward since last 3 years.In order to achieve this, IPH aims to work with healthcare providers (government and private), authorities (councilor, health department,...
May be it was dead before seeing the world.
It is more than, two months since, I had an opportunity to stay overnight in a tertiary government hospital in Bangalore. This is the storey of what I observed that night at a labor ward. It was a night of the August 23, 2011. If the nurses and doctors had listened...
Why are government doctors afraid of pregnant women?
Context – Monthly taluk meeting of all government medical officers (MOs) in the taluk. The MOs were asked for their suggestions to strengthen the health services in their taluk. Among various issues raised, one issue was about the lack of obstetric services at the...