In the last 4 or 5 years, I have seen a new tend in the same treatment. My doctors are secretive about the medicines they prescribe. I am not given a prescription. The doctors have gone hi-fi in that they have a computer. They feed my data and God-knows-what into it. Then they pass on a prescription to the attending nurses. The nurse tells me what, when, how to take the medicines.

Two sides to the coin
One way I take this is that potent medicines in the hands of inexperienced patients could be detrimental to the health of the patients themselves. So the doctors would prefer to keep the combinations secret to themselves. This reduces the risk of self-medication and added side effects and the headache of dealing with them.

On the other hand, the problem is when I want to visit a different doctor when I go to another town or another area in the same city or if the doctor is out of town. I do not know what medicines I was given. I do not know if the new secret doctor is going to give the same ones. If I want to change the doctor for whatever reason, what do I tell the other doctor? “I was treated by a friend of yours who gave me some medicines, that I do not feel worked on me in the way I want it to. Can you give me some other medicine, that might work”

I have two options – either bear with my current condition till my doctor is back in town or reachable over the cell phone. Or take the risk of going to a new doctor in either of the available medical fields (ayurveda, homoeopathy, allopathy, naturopathy,…)

If God-forbid, there is an adverse reaction to some food that I had and the medicine that I was (secretly) prescribed, and I cannot go to another doctor for an antidote. Allopathic doctors will totally disown the situation by saying they do not know what caused it and how to effectively treat it.

Luckily, this is not the case with all the Homoeopathic or Ayurvedic doctors – there are a few who are OK with you buying your medicines from the Baksons or Charak or other brand names available. And they seem to be OK with letting you know what you are going to have and how it is going to affect you. I am not sure if this is a new trend in the field of alternative medicine and how long this is going to continue.

1. An LIC agent needs plan or policy information and premium information for various ages of customers. Till recently, LIC Agents, who now call themselves Life Insurance Advisors from LIC of India, had to buy a book called Wings (for around Rs. 100/-) every year to get revised premium rates. Most development officers (bosses of the Agents) have no clue on how to procure the mortality tables behind the calculations in WINGS books. So how did the WINGS publishers get the information? What power do the WINGS publishers have in the LIC or Government circles that they are privy to secret information on the tables and calculations?

2. LIC Agents now rely on software from DataComp to provide competitive illustrations to clients. The software not only has all plan information but has additional features to produce nice illustrations for customers. There are options to add the customer’s age, general profile, health information and so on. This costs an agent somewhere around Rs.10,000/- So who gives Datacomp all the information they need to produce the software – the data that forms the core behind all the illustrations of plans? And how are they related to the Government or LIC of India?

3. Funnily, Datacomp software is made only for Windows operating system. If an Agent needs to run this, he has to add the additional expense of Licences from Microsoft (if she does not want a pirated version). Is there a tie-up to promote Windows or was it just the programmers of the software did not have sufficient skills on a Linux-based or freeware OS based solution.

4. Now on the WEB and through the SMS medium, there is a website which offers to provide policy information and quotes for Rs.1200 per year. Add this website to the list of above two categories of persons who have access to data that LIC never published outside. LIC’s own website has some information on policy quotes. However, there are no options for any sort of options or putting in riders.

5. Now on the Loans side – there are disclosures made by LIC of India that it has exposure to certain loans. LIC gives loans to organizations at reduced rate of interest. One such beneficiary is supposed to be a certain corporate hospital chain. Now the question is, why is a Corporate Hospital chain, which fleeces money and has absolutely no social concern (except hospital luxury to the rich) a beneficiary of low-cost debt from LIC of India?

6. Similarly, LIC of India has investments in Shares of Public Listed companies. Some portion of this investment is sound investment, some of it is driven by Government or Political pressure and the rest by vested interests of the powers at the top.

While Anna Hazare is looking for transparency from the Government Servants and politicians, the public has to keep an eye open for these mammoth corporations which control crores of Rupees and shake the share market at will. It is the public money and a lot of customers trust LIC of India – the poorest of the poor, more that the rich. And it is the interests of the Poor that the Government is supposed to be looking after.

An excellent article in “The Hindu” on the present state of Medical Services.  Subtly touches a number of social ills…

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Converted first by http://www.free-ocr.com/ and corrected
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PROTEST DEMONSTRATION
Against harrasment on School Vehicles and Drivers
by transport authorities
Date : 04-08-2010 Place : Mysore Bank Circle
Time : 11.00 a.m. Bangalore
Karnataka United School and Light Motor Vehicle Drivers Union (R)
(Affiliated to All India UTUC)

We being the disadvanged owners and drivers of light motor vehicles are facing several problems the Karnataka united School & Light Motor Vehicles Union {R) guided by All india UTUC likes to bringforth certain immediate burning problems of the drivers and small owners of the light motor vehicles to the notice of the public of Bangalore.

The regional transport office is harrasing drivers and small owners of LMV’s in the name of rules. Deliberatly they have concocted certain rules only to harrass people like us. The government being most irresponsible has not provided employment for us. Mobilising our own means and resoures we have purchased our vehicles with severe hardship. We are doing this job since 40 years. lt is helping public especially school children. We treat school children as our own children. Because of this the parents all over the city trust us. Despite doing such a worthfull job, the RTO aurhorities treat us like criminals. Some times they seize our vehicles and they levy hefty penalties. They have deviced various ways and means to seize and harrass vehicle drivers and owners. RTO is being corrupt to the core unless we pay them bribe they will not allow us to bring vehicles on the road. Now they are harrassing us in the name of vehicle permit and white board. Even if it is converted into yellow board they say seat has to be altered. This is the fate of even auto drivers who are engaged in school trips.

Earlier our Union fought against the introduction of speed governors. Because of our struggle Supreme court brought stay on the high court order.

We make an appeal to the people of Bangalore especially the parents of school children to support us. Our organisation is plannning a massive protest against RTO’s harrasement

Our Demands
* Regularise and authorise school trips.
* Issue permit to vehicles for making school trips without any change.
* Authonse any vehicle with fitness certificate to run school trips.

PROGRAMME
Protest Demonstration

Place: Mysore Bank Circle – Time: 11..00 A.M.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The RTO got proactive in their own ways by organizing audits and reporting that 20 children are being pushed into vans meant for 5. The Government runs almost none of the schools and manages transport to a very few. However, it is good at coming up with legislation, mostly not implementable.
The organizations provide services with out fulfilling legal obligations. each one trumpeting their own side of the story. For one, the RTO itself is not clean – whether it be School vans or personal vehicles or commercial vehicles (imagine you need to buy some Rs.250 of airforce stamps after registering a vehicle for the guy to put his final stamp…). School bus associations were making money by bribing so long. Looks like the 6th pay commission increases were not sufficient to combat inflation and they want more. Petrol prices have gone up to increase expenses for van drivers and they want to keep their margins… The public is the one facing the brunt – both on the cost factor (increase in monthly fares and 12-month fares even when the schools run for 10) and the with-drawal of a convenience during the strike.
The Victim again: the public who use the services…

19 Jun 2010: Chaitanya Hospital, #80, 3rd Cross, P&T Colony, R.T.Nagar, Bangalore – 560032: 1.75% :Service Tax on bill amount

While the first one (Brush twice a day) has been beaten into me since a very long time and I have stopped questioning, I still feel, it is sufficient if you can brush during the morning and gargle your mouth well before getting to bed in the night. And gargle well after every meal. (You could swallow the water after you gargle, if you are not using a mouth-wash). And it is not difficult to get kids to do this.

Ecological impact of using double the amount of tooth-paste: you are flushing more calcium carbonate and other chemicals down the drain. You are incresing the use of the chemical. You are creating more demand for the manufactured product driving up production and usage of energy in production. You are also using more water and generating more waste.

The second and the third are purely good revenue generating activities for products and services. Flossing does not seem to be part of Indian culture yet and tooth paste companies are not yet actively promoting it. It too will come in some time, with the growing army of urban dentists slowing pushing it as a standard hygene formula.

Let us look at the “change your toothbrush once in 3 months even if it does not look worn out”. For one, if you are using the right toothbrush and the toothbrush right, it could last longer and so could your teeth. Some brands are also pushing the “fact” that your three-month old toothbrush could harbour three times more bacteria than a new one… Your stomach harbours more bacteria than your teeth. My idea is – let your mouth and teeth get immune to the minor non-destructive variants of bacteria. And if your toothbrush was harbouring so many bacteria, what are the chemicals in your – brush-twice-a-day – toothpaste doing?

Ecological Impact of using more toothbrushes: Toothbrushes are made from plastic. By changing toothbrushes more frequently, you are creating more plastic waste (non-biodegradable) and forcing the tooth brush industry to work extra hard at producing more. The more they produce, the more they want to sell and the more plastic waste is generated. And I found it hard to find ideas for re-using used tooth-brushes.

The third: visit a dentist every n months: If you are using double the amount of toothpaste and changing your toothbrush frequently, would that not be sufficient to give you healthy teeth? Why spend on the dentist again (even if your insurance company is sponsoring it, remember that your insurance did not come for free and they have included the cost of your dentist visit into the price – which means you were already overcharged)? So by asking you to visit a dentist periodically (and not in very long intervals), the toothpaste company is actually doubtful of the efficacy of its product and doubts your skill in cleaning well. You spent money on the toothpaste in the first place and then you spend on the dentist.

Ecological impact: In a city, visit to a dentist is not with out its ecological impact. You travel to and from some place. You use either the public transport or use your own. Either way, you clog the roads. The dentist’s office has its own AC (and possibly a lift and unnecessary lighting), which takes power, the prescription and report are printed on paper – additional waste. The dentist uses equipment which are sterilized (for your protection) and this process has its own energy costs. And they are sterilized after you leave the hospital. Then the cotton and other dressings, which you might have caused the doctor to use and one pair of gloves. So you are creating waste every time you visit the dentist.

So what could you do?
Help the environment the following way:
1. Clean your teeth once in the morning and then gargle your mouth with water after every meal.
2. Gargle your mouth before you go to bed.
3. Visit a dentist only when you feel some discomfort in the teeth. Though a large number of people would not agree to this and call preventive maintenance a part of daily life, remember that you are already under too much of preventive maintenance.

I thought of playing by the book. The next day, I got my better half to get all the attestations done (the government college near my house was pretty kind enough to do it for me – free of charge. Some arms of the government really work and serve!). These included the 10th class certificates, the photo copies of my old passport, my telephone bills, … I am still wondering, if the police verification is for addresss verification, then why is our sweet cop verifying all the other documents that the passport officer had already verified. I called up my sweet cop agian and he asked me to get them the next evening. After completing work at my office, I ran off to the police station again. The cop handling my case was not to be found. However, there was another man, …, who again looked at my documents, my address proofs and all that and in the meantime, Naveen arrived. Both of them had a quick discussion and looked like Naveen was receiving a reprimand. The new cop took over and said everything was in order. He then told that he would visit my house the next day – he asked me to call as soon as I was back from the office.

The next evening, I called up the police station and the cop and a writer arrived at my home in some time. They were able to locate my house, got a few forms filled in Kannada – the writer wrote a few lines on his papers and off they were. Not a rupee asked. Was I overjoyed… and you know what I did.
Then the cop just remembered that he forgot to bring the register in which I was to sign… and how sorry he looked. I said – do not worry – I can come to the station tomorrow and complete that. He said fine and left…
I was told the report would be sent the next monday and things were fine.
I checked the passport site on wednesday and the status still showed as waiting for police verification. I hope these well-meaning guys who prevent crime by ensuring that well-meaning citizens follow all rules in getting their passport, have sent my verification report.

Need to wait for the next round – the postal guy…