Cop-doc nexus in kidney racket?

The mega racket unearthed in Gurgaon last week of kidney theft from poor working class youth by a cabal of doctors and agents bringing in foreign clients is a gruesome metaphor for what the Indian elites in general have been doing to the country’s poor for several decades now. This report below confirms the fact that the Indian State, represented in this case by the Gurgaon police, wears its uniforms and wields its guns to protect the perpetrators of such crime and not the victims.

Gurgaon, IBNLive.com: Life has come full circle for the Gurgaon police. On Friday, the city police commissioner in a press conference, claimed credit for unearthing the biggest kidney racket.

On Saturday, the Gurgaon police are under the scanner. Moradabad police, who first registered the case, claim that information of the raid was leaked leading to the escape of the main accused.

“Looks like there’s some kind of nexus. Otherwise what explains the leak of information,” says ASP, Moradabad, Manjeet Saini.

The ASP is not the only one complaining. Residents of Gurgaon’s Sector-23 are now alleging they had suspected foul play for long but despite their repeated complaints the police chose to ignore the warning.

We told the police that this house and whatever goes on inside needs to be investigated. That’s what we told them,” says a resident, Satbeer Singh.

Agrees Gautambheer Das, another resident, “There has to be some nexus between police and doctors or the police are totally blind.”

Meanwhile the Gurgaon police continue to raid several places in the city and also in Delhi looking for clues on the whereabouts of the main accused Dr Amit.

That the clinic where the racket was unearthed was D-5 is not the only similarity between the gruesome Nithari killings and this kidney racket. In this case too, the police conveniently ignored all complaints made by the residents of the locality and with the mastermind still on the run, they have not much to boast of.

Xenobiotics and diabetes – a ‘neglected link’

The Lancet has carried in its latest online edition, an article on the strong association between pollutants and onset of diabetes mellitus. This is of great relevance to us, because of the unrestrained use of organic pollutants in our processes and agriculture and their free dumping in public spaces.

It also must tell our political class that it may not be useful to entirely cast the blame for poor health on habits and lifestyle choices. The Lancet article shows that even if you were perfect, you may still become a diabetic because the environment is neglected and polluted. So who is responsible for that?

(Lancet may require registration to read the full piece.)

Health insurance: What co-payments do to care seekers

There is considerable literature on the effects on health-seeking behaviour, of the lack of health insurance, insufficient cover and co-payments.

Here is another piece of evidence on the effects of co-payments on care seekers.

Health insurance co-payments deter mammography use

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — When faced with even a modest health insurance co-payment for a mammogram, significantly fewer women receive these potentially life-saving breast cancer screenings, according to a new study by Brown University and Harvard Medical School researchers.

In this large-scale investigation of the relationship between health insurance co-payments and mammography rates, researchers found that screening rates were 8 per cent lower among women with a co-payment than among women with full insurance coverage. Researchers at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, with a colleague from Harvard Medical School, publish their results in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

“The message is simple and it’s startling – a small co-payment for a mammogram can lead to a sharp decrease in breast cancer screening rates,” said Amal Trivedi, M.D., lead author of the study and assistant professor in the Department of Community Health at Alpert Medical School. “Co-payments as low as $12 deter women from getting mammograms. Because mammograms are critical in the fight against breast cancer, the most common cancer among American women, our findings have important health policy implications.”

“Eliminating co-payments for mammograms in the Medicare program has the potential to save lives, because screening detects breast cancers at an earlier, more curable stage,” said John Ayanian, M.D., study co-author and professor of medicine and health care policy at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. 

In my opinion, the impact of current policies on Indians, who are increasingly being cast into uncharted waters under the guise of giving them better healthcare through for-profit insurance companies, could be grave. Even hospital facilities created out of taxes are being converted into “pay wards” making a mockery of the principle of universal health care.

Recently, the Union Health Minister, Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss praised the performance of a private sector-led effort at health insurance in Andhra Pradesh (in a private but recorded talk at The Hindu in Chennai). I wonder what the evidence is to show that things are working fine in AP, that it is better than tax-funded care and that it is something that is good for everyone. One can only shudder at the profit-seeking neo-liberal winds that are blowing relentlessly across the country.

GA

Right to healthcare and asylum seekers

There is little doubt that a healthcare system that is funded by taxes and has adequate checks and balances is the most equitable and just. Britain’s healthcare system operating under the NHS is fundamentally based on such a philosophy.

Thus, when someone is denied care in Britain, for whatever reason, it comes as a great shock. The terrible case of 39 year old Ama Sumani who came to Britain in 2001, hoping to be a student, and was diagnosed five years later with multiple myeloma, only to be deported to her native Ghana where she languishes without care has caused outrage among the thinking British public.

The Lancet has scathingly called it an act of “atrocious barbarism” and called upon the medical community to assert its deep distress at what has been done to the ailing woman. That editorial is here. Clearly, without the dialysis facility that she had access to in the UK, and further medical attention, Sumani’s chances of making any kind of progress are seriously in jeopardy.

A point to note is the response of many members of the British public with offers of monetary help and even bone marrow donations.

The case of Ama Sumani provides an opportunity to question some of our own trends: no access to life-saving treatment for many poor patients including those with renal failure; attempts by State governments to restrict access to domiciled patients, shunning those coming from geographically contiguous areas in neighbouring States (example, Government General Hospital in Chennai demanding ration cards to filter out those coming from Andhra districts nearby) and the larger trend of transferring healthcare to the for-profit sector both directly (through various forms of insurance) and indirectly by failing to expand state-run tertiary care.