This last week was amazing. I was
actually disappointed that I wasn’t able to get this post up sooner but that’s
the way things go.
I have been so inundated with new
opportunities that I’ve found it hard to focus on anything other than research.
Now that I am done with my interviews and the collection of some 300 surveys
has gone pretty seamlessly I’ve found it easy to catch up on some of the more
extraneous parts of this experience. This post however is being focused on an
amazing experience that I had last week visiting a Government Hospital in the
neighboring state of Kerala.
Where we live in Tamil Nadu is in
close proximity to the neighboring state of Kerala by only about a 30 min bus
ride to get to the boarder. Last Thursday I got together with Emma to take a
short trip over to the capital of Kerala, Kochi. We went to take advantage of
an offer that I got to visit one of the Government Hospital. I received this
offer from a young and amiable doctor that I met at Ortho One Hospital here in
Coimbatore. His name is Dr Cherian and he is an orthopedic surgeon at the hospital.
He offered to give Emma and me a private tour when I told him about our research
projects. Emma came along to get a separate tour of the maternity ward and the gynecology
department. It was an amazing trip.
In one day I got to see so
intimately the workings and structure of one of the hardest to enter facilities
in India. The fact is that there is a lot to be done. I realized after my visit
that a General Hospital is a scary and hard place to go into and not come out a
different person.
I have visited once the main
medical college here in Coimbatore and the comparison even between the two was
dismal. The general hospital in Kochi is supposed to be the best in India. Thus
as far as General Hospital standards go it was excellent but in all reality
they know and the government knows that there has to be huge strides made in
medical care if they are to provide a place of safe reliable medical care for
their citizens.
I was also able to tour the
Operation Theatre. In a matter of an hour and a half I saw 5 surgeries. The
doctor then had one of the administrators of the hospital lead me around for
the rest of the day. After the surgeries we watched in the morning, Emma was
taken straight to maternity ward and spent the rest of the day with the
gynecologist. I was able to see everything from, the optometrist’s operation
theatre to the nuclear medicine department where the best attempts of oncology
procedures are taken out. It was quite the afternoon and I really began to see
and understand the struggles that each of the department was facing with
limited and under qualified staff. I was also able to observe the ever constant
need for more and more resources from the Government that weren’t being allocated
correctly. I found it insightful to take some time and talk with the patients
about their experience in the hospital. Most of the reports were pretty depressing
as they explained that they came as a last resort. However for all of the heartbreaks,
the silver lining was that the general hospital in Kochi still outperforms many
private hospitals all over India. I am hoping to use the interviews with Dr
Cherian and the literature that they gave me for my lit review for my final
paper. It has also been a huge help to see the workings of all these systems to
make a more accurate evaluation of the status of healthcare currently in India.
This will be my second last blog due to the ending of our projects. We
leave next week, which will mark our 13th week in the field. Look out for one
more post before I return home.
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