Positive facets of coronavirus times

Ever since corona made its presence in Wuhan in China till date, the entire world is obsessed only with corona leaving and postponing everything else. The fact is that the corona made the entire humankind shiver with mortal fear. Nevertheless, it has its positive facets too.

India has the unique qualities to withstand, face and bear with any calamity. It proved on many occasions in the past history that it can come out with any grave situation with little damage to its population. The present-day coronavirus spread is no exception to that.

From time immemorial in our country, despite many drawbacks, the public health system had always been easily available, accessible, and affordable to the people in their own way.

Even before the entry of advancements in medical and health sectors, new technologies, diagnostic tools, advanced treatment protocols, the services of RMPs, PMPs, LMPs in rural areas and ordinary MBBS doctors in the urban areas were available across the length and breadth of the country.

The influx of corporate hospitals in the cities and metropolitan and two-tier cities and the subsequent initiatives of governments made the medical and health services within the reach of common man. Arogyasri is the best example of this.

This is precisely the reason, why in India, we never opted for or preferred a National Health Scheme (NHS) like in UK or Obama Care in the US, which are influenced by the insurance companies.

Healthcare basically has to be divided as primary, secondary and tertiary.

Most of the medical problems that require healthcare fall into the primary category. Only a few in tertiary category and the rest are secondary. There are a large number of Primary Health Centres (PHC) and Community Health Centres (CHC) in government sector to take care of primary healthcare free of cost to all.

For the secondary care, there are adequate numbers of area hospitals. For tertiary care, there are specialty and super specialty hospitals at all identified places mostly in private sector and a few in public.

In the past, not many decades ago, the grandmothers in the house used to treat the regular ailments like cold and cough, dysentery, indigestion and ordinary fevers with the spices box or the colloquial Popu Dabba in the kitchen.

It used to be the home dispensary for these regular ailments. The resident family doctors who were treating the family from generations together would immediately come up with a remedy within no time, as he knows the family medical history.

Post Independent India, a lot of emphasis was put on public health. To prevent and curtail epidemics like cholera and malaria, administering vaccines like the BCG became mandatory since 1948.

This probably helped our people from generation together to develop immunity to the new viruses and bacteria. We could successfully eradicate the smallpox, diphtheria, leprosy, polio and a host of other diseases besides controlling malaria. And this perhaps will also help us in getting over the coronavirus.

In the pre-corona days, the public health facilities both in the government and private sector were so accessible to the people that from Primary Health Centres (PHCs) in rural areas to the major corporate hospitals in cities have always thronged with people.

Every hospital, every private clinic, diagnostic centres, outpatient (OP) facilities in all the hospitals have always been crowded till the outbreak of corona. The mushrooming of corporate hospitals is a living proof.

All the private hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres were working full time to manage the patients. Telangana State especially Hyderabad became the medical, health and pharma hub for the whole of Asia and may be to the world too.

This can be verified from the fact that the number of patients coming from abroad to various corporate hospitals in Hyderabad is much more than any other State in the country.

The scene reversed overnight after the coronavirus outbreak. Now, except corona-related cases there is virtually no talk or presence of any other ailment. The corporate hospitals are deserted and so is the case with the PHCs, private clinics, dispensaries, small and medium hospitals.

No cases of road or other accidents even. The entire scenario changed in such a manner that as though nothing exists except the corona in the medical and health sectors.

People stopped complaining about their high or low blood pressure, their blood sugar levels and their frequent ailments whether chronic or not. Why is that, the much sought after private medical practitioners are not troubled with queries from their patients.

A leading pulmonologist explains the scenario as, in any private or corporate hospitals there are four categories of revenue generation. 25 per cent of revenue comes from foreign patients. 10 per cent from the Out Patient Dispensary (OPD), 40 per cent from elective surgeries and 25 per cent from emergency surgeries.

Due to corona, elected surgeries are stopped. Due to the worldwide travel restrictions there are no foreign patients or the medical tourism.

Patients who otherwise used throng to the hospitals on a normal day, they prefer to take the local medical advice and postpone their hospitalisation for some time due to the travel and transport restrictions.

A practicing dermatologist in Hyderabad observed that, when a life-threatening situation like the outbreak of coronavirus spread comes up, people tend to put their regular and ordinary ailments in cold storage. They are more bothered about the deadly virus than their skin ailment or some other ordinary ailment.

A pioneering paediatric physician in the city, whose clinic had always serpentine queues, finds no one even calling him up over phone. This is interesting because he used to get a number of calls daily.

This does not mean that people have no medical problems of their children. It is because they no longer feel it as top on their day to agenda. For them, uppermost in their minds is corona, and nothing else.

The lockdown did more help than harm to the people. It taught people the importance of personal hygiene. It also imbibed the need to keep environments free of any pollution. It taught the dignity of labour. It taught self-discipline and changed perception of life for better.

It taught the importance of social relationships. More than anything else, it taught the real meaning of life and the importance of being alive.

Due to the lock down with majority of people remaining in their homes, the pollution levels have come down drastically which would have been an impossible task in normal days. Nature started rediscovering itself. Since there was no movement of vehicles, the accidents rate came down to zero. There are no inpatients into both government and private hospitals. No emergency operations.

Against this background and at a time when the occupancy rate in the private corporate hospitals has drastically come down, the government may probably consider seriously, taking into control of these hospitals to make use of their bed strength for any future need that might arise to counter coronavirus.

(The writer is Chief PRO to the Chief Minister of Telangana. Views expressed are personal)