Reflections

Yesterday I got into an argument with one of the Indian residents of the condominium where I live. This young man, while discussing living conditions in Malaysia nd how it compares with life back home began to bemoan the lack of independence for Malaysian women, particularly of the Muslim faith. As proof of this he cited the widespread use of the tudong, the head scarf, which is widely, though not compulsorily used in Malaysia among Muslim women. (The Prime Minister’s wife does not wear a tudong.) There has been a hoo-hah in the press recently about some teacher who insisted that his schoolgirl charge wear the tudong at least during the duration of the Ramadan month . This has set off a lot of brouhaha in the press and the comment was in this context. In recent times, Muslim women have been criticized for sometimes voluntarily draping themselves in burkhas, hijabs and for covering their hair. This has led to even legislation in Western European countries preventing them from doing so

A major fracas has erupted in the healthcare and political world after a study published in the Lancet. The paper entitled “Emergence of a new antibiotic resistance mechanism in India, Pakistan, and the UK: a molecular, biological, and epidemiological study” which was authored by a total of 31 researchers from places as diverse as Chennai, Kolkata, Lahore, Karachi. Stockholm, Cardiff and Brisbane (among others) has sparked off a bitter row in India. Accusations are flying around about motivated reports aimed at tarnishing the Indian image and trying to damage the burgeoning medical tourism industry. What is the fuss all about? As is well known, one of the biggest threats to life is infections. In fact before the thirties there was nothing we could do about most infections. But after Fleming’s fortuitous discovery of Penicillin we have been gifted with a wide array of antibiotics that have been great help in Man’s battle against infectious disease. However over the past decade or so

One of the biggest problems that patients face is a lack of information. This problem may have been mitigated to some extent in the developed societies with the ubiquity of the internet, though the huge amount of anecdotal and even misleading information may be confusing rather than useful. In India this has always been a problem and remains so today. Anybody who has been in medical practice in India will acknowledge that patients are information deprived, about their disease, their prognosis, and the best places for treatment and about the costs involved. This has led to a lot of information published by newspapers which almost all have a health page nowadays. However these are almost always sponsored by hospital chains and peddle half-truths and sometimes plain lies in order to direct patient traffic to their facilities. The newspapers of course are totally regulated by their advertisement departments, and even the interviews that appear in them, extolling the feats of Dr X or Dr Y