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A book written by a cardiac surgeon-debater traces the journey of healthcare in India.
A discussion between Kunal Sarkar, the author of The Sickness of Health, and neurosurgeon and fellow debater Sandip Chatterjee at Calcutta Club on Friday offered insights into the then and now of healthcare in the country.
The discussion was moderated by Pradeep Gooptu.
Snippets from the discussion
Animals in zoo
Gooptu wondered how an insider like Sarkar could come up with a book on the healthcare system. “Whatever you write may either be misunderstood or may be construed as pleasing to some people. Aren’t you too close to the fire to be writing such stuff?”
Sarkar concurred. “We are not just close to the fire; we are in the fireplace. But there is another way of looking at it. You have a series of films called A Night at the Zoo, Night at the Museum. We are like animals in a zoo, a very peculiar zoo. It is absolutely imperative for society. It has got its own peculiarities,” he said.
“The trouble is society at large only interacts with this facility on a need-to-use basis. But in these times, we have been swept by a crisis of enormous proportions. I think therein comes the necessity of us becoming a little more familiar — as we do with politics, economics, entertainment. This has been a little effort to make people familiar with the realities, the trials and tribulations of healthcare,” Sarkar said.
Watershed line
Sarkar said India was “a lower middle class” nation when it came to indices like human development and education. But the same country is a healthcare destination for people from much developed countries.
“We should have never been a country which does complex neuro work, cardiac work, transplant work. Can you imagine the entire Middle East and central Asia, countries with three times our per capita GDP? People from these places come to India for healthcare. This is an anachronism,” he said before going on to explain what set India aside.
“This precocious development of healthcare in India happened because there was a generation of people, just before you (Chatterjee) and me. So, the 1970s was that watershed line in medicine. A lot of people who went abroad and got training, came back, worked, and not only made a name for themselves but started a lineage and legacy of training. They gave us the expertise…,” he said.
Chatterjee said his decision to pursue neurosurgery was considered incredulous.
“Nobody wanted to do a very specialised subject at that time…. The neurosurgery we were exposed to as medical students… was dreadful. With all due respect to the people who were doing it, they had no facilities…,” he added.
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