037. Kerala Health Service being sold out wholesale to British.

Kerala govt to ink pact with London-based NICE to revitalize health sector in the state

By Pharma Biz

Peethaambaran Kunnathoor, Chennai
Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Amid reports that the health sector in Kerala is bedeviled by many problems that have led to reduction in quality of service delivery in certain health institutions, the state government has decided to ink a pact with the London based National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to revitalize the entire health services in the state.

The tie-up will be for the next three years and with the intervention of NICE, best standard could be maintained in all spheres of health sector in the state, said Rajeev Sadanandan, principal secretary, health, government of Kerala. He was speaking at the valedictory session of the pharmacists’ conference at Thiruvananthapuram recently. The total system will become in a systematic and proper way and separate guidelines for treatment, medicine, services of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other para medical professionals will come into force. In future, there will not be any variation in the treatment, he said.

NICE, an arm of the national health services of the UK government, provides independent, authoritative and evidence-based guidance on the most effective ways to prevent, diagnose and treat disease and ill health, reducing inequalities and variation.

“For the next three years, the department will be monitored by NICE, strict vigilance and standard can be maintained in each and every area of the health sector. They will carry out assessments of the most appropriate treatment regimes for different diseases. This will help the desired medical outcomes for patients. The use of new and existing medicines, treatments, clinical practice, guidance on treatment procedures, advice to patients and public sector workers on health promotion and ill-health avoidance will be provided by the experts of the organisation,” the health secretary said.

There are reports that the health sector in Kerala is bedeviled by many problems that have led to reduction in quality of service delivery in certain health institutions. Besides, unavailability of medicines in hospitals, high prices for essential drugs, inadequacy of sufficient staff and strikes by nurses have also affected the sector badly. The government is looking for a concrete solution to all these issues without chance for recurrence, it is learnt.

The health secretary said that in the next session of the state Legislative Assembly, the government will introduce the Clinical Establishment Bill which will standardize the fee being levied by private hospitals and clinical institutions for various services. Further, drug rationalization committee will also be formed in all district hospitals, which will prepare the list of medicines to be distributed under a scheme for providing generic drugs from November 1. In all the government hospitals in Kerala, generic medicines will be available on reasonable rates and a treatment protocol will also come into force from November, he added.

Regarding predicament of pharmacies in the hospital, the principal health secretary said he would look into the possibility of standardization of pharmacies and try to get accreditation from NABH for model pharmacies in the state. By receiving the set of guidelines prepared by the pharmacy council, he said the Council as well as the pharmacists association has to ensure the value addition to the health sector from their side.

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Comment:

There was an independent and reliable system of medicine-actually a system of a combination of ingenious and native treatment and nourishing system- existing in India before the British installed allopathy and revamped the field of Indian Medical Attendance. Today, almost all indigenous systems including the world famous ayurveda are ignored and neglected and only allopathy is being given importance and monopoly. In India, even now, poor people when they are sick, can still go to a government hospital and become healthy again, availing the benefits of the famous Free Indian Hospital System. It is when we have no money and therefore no nutrition that diseases afflict us. Therefore this free hospital system has been a great blessing to the Indian masses. It has been what sustained the people of India through their years of sickness. The money involved in retaining this system was people’s money, not the dowry money of Indian Health Authorities. It is the same money which funds the treatment of Government Ministers, MPs VIPs and Government Secretaries abroad; there is no shame in people regaining their health by availing free treatment. The very people in India who are directly partaking in bringing about this sale deed of a country's good will and charity are beneficiaries of this Free Indian Hospital System which they are going to abolish for ever. Which one of them does not receive free hospital care from government?

In the United Kingdom there is now no free hospital treatment. Either you pay money at the hospital or you pay money in advance for insurance. This is exactly what the British monitoring of Kerala Health Services Department is going to bring to Kerala. It is a full implementation of the British Health System, minus everything good in it. The first thing they are going to force without caring people’s resistance is abolishing every kind of free medical assistance. What is a collapsing British economy finding prospectful in extending managerial assistance to the health care sector of a thriving former colony, except exporting over-paid excess staff? -Editor-in-Chief.