Visit to New Delhi, India - Part 1 [2011/08/17]
A woman waiting to undergo a major operation sleeping in a urinal Visit to New Delhi, India - Part 1 This is my 42nd visit to India on my leprosy elimination activities, but the first time ever to have stayed just in New Delhi for 4 days. The Commonwealth Games were held in New Delhi last year, and the new airport and the highways have been completed, the famous honking of cars were dramatically reduced and I only saw one cow walking in the streets. There are restrictions on the height of high rise buildings and therefore the view from the hotel window was a beautiful spread of green trees and an appearance of a European city. New Delhi was like a city in a different country when compared with Old Delhi. At a glance there is but peace and tranquility in this city and it is a pleasure to see the recent economic growth of this world’s largest democratic country and the rapid growth of its middle class, yet there are still many difficult and serious problems. A photograph of a woman waiting for her hospital appointment living in an unused urinal was on the first page of the August 3rd morning edition of one of India’s leading newspapers, the “Hindustan Times” that was delivered to my hotel room. All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), the largest and the most premium hospital in India, treats an incredible number of ten thousand patients and undergoes about 320 surgeries a day. Yet there are still thousands of patients waiting for their treatment. The patients are accompanied by families and friends and therefore it can well be imagined, that the number of people waiting is enormous. Patients waiting for an operation, excluding emergency cases, extend between a few days to as long as two years. Half of the patients who are seeking treatment are poor people who come from other states than Delhi and cannot afford the travel expenses to go back home to wait for their appointment, nor have money for accommodation while they wait in Delhi. As a result they wait for their turn living in public bathrooms, subway stations or under highways. Ms. Ramrati (45-year-old woman) has been waiting for two months just to get an appointment for an operation on her heart valve. She lived under a tree on the hospital premise until two weeks ago, but the hospital took pity on her and made arrangements so that she could live in the unused urinal outside the hospital. The standard of medical system in Japan, with medical insurance for all, is the highest in the world. The United States has finally taken a step forward towards establishing a medical insurance system, overriding the opposition from the Republican Party. In China, a country with remarkable economic development, there is neither national health insurance nor long-term care insurance for the elderly. It is said that about 2 billion people, one-third of the world 6 billion people, are the poor who live on $1 a day. I have come across and seen with my own eyes, many people who have never once in their lives been able to access to modern medicine, let alone a doctor’s treatment, and left to die, saying “I put myself in God’s hands.” The use of native traditional medicine that has its roots in the history and culture of different countries is the solution to my strong desire to somehow save these people. The price of traditional medicine is one-tenth or even one-twentieth that of western medicine. Efficacy and quality management are entrusted to the responsibility of health ministries of each country. The medicine is provided in a medicinal box to each household using the Japanese traditional “Toyama Method”. The users are obliged to pay only what they have used. It has been reported that in Mongolia, they have confirmed the results of the Nippon Foundation project and are preparing a bill to make it a national project whereby the medicine kits will be delivered to every household. It is my strong desire that this system be spread to all the poor people of the world. |