Amit Goel, a resident of Bordubi village in
Assam’s Tinsukia district, was shocked when his son was born with two serious
medical conditions. Amit’s son Darsh was not only born with a hole in his
heart, he also had Down’s Syndrome. A relative told him about an organisation
called the Hospital Guide Foundation (HGF), which provides free-of-charge
guidance to people who are confused and are in need of medical guidance. After
talking to the HGF, he was put in touch with two doctors in Delhi where he
travelled to immediately with his three-month-old son for surgery for the heart
condition. Later, Mr Goel was also put in touch with multiple hospitals in the
capital to receive therapy for the child’s Down’s Syndrome as well.
“I was more concerned about Darsh’s Down’s Syndrome than I was
about his heart defect. Almost every doctor had told me that there wasn’t much
that can be done for a patient with Down’s. But HGF put me through at two very
good hospitals in New Delhi and they suggested a few forms of therapy for Down’s.
We were told about physiotherapy that would help with his condition. Thanks to
the right advice from doctors, Darsh’s quality of life has improved by as much
as 80 per cent thanks to the therapy,” said Mr Goel.
Yasub, a resident of Bengaluru, had been suffering from issue
relating to hyper-acidity for a very long time. He had consulted many doctors,
but no form of treatment had been successful in his case. Almost out of hope, a
colleague told him about the Hospital Guide Foundation. After getting in touch
with the HGF, he was advised to consider options other than allopathy. He was
told that it was possible that homeopathy and naturopathy could be more
effective in his case. “It was finally homeopathy that worked in my case,” he
says. After that experience, he has told many of his friends and family about
the foundation’s work and they have approached the HGF about issues ranging
from chronic depression to orthopedic conditions.
In another case in Assam, a 53-day-old baby girl was born with a
serious anorectal malformation called rectovestibular fistula. The couple, who
do not wish to be named, got in touch with the Hospital Guide Foundation and
were connected to a doctors in Bengaluru who managed to correct the
malformation in the infant’s colon and rectum in a single surgery. The couple
had been told earlier that at least two surgeries would be needed to fix the
condition.
“I think it’s paradoxical that India is emerging as a hub for
medical tourism and yet our own people don’t have access to proper medical
care,” says Hospital Guide Foundation co-founder and director Indiritta Singh
D’mello, an Oxford graduate who started the HGF with her husband Manu Tripathi.
“We wanted to create a guide for healthcare in the country. A guide for the
people who are looking for a specialist and have no idea who to ask. But most
importantly, we wanted these services to be completely free and unbiased,” says
Manu Tripathi who also works as a programme director for a major radio channel
in Bengaluru. Hospital Guide Foundation was started as a group on Facebook with
a handful of listed doctors. The foundation has now grown to register more than
700 doctors on its database and are serving in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
Indiritta and Manu have also started citizen journal’s forum with more than
50,000 members, including doctors. The purpose of this forum is to share
experiences in the medical sphere, whether good or bad, says Indiritta. Members
can seek opinions, suggestions on doctors in the forum. The forum also enables
the HGF to get candid viewpoints from the patients about the doctors. “Once the
NGO caught on, we were approached by many people with business proposals but
Indiritta and I felt that it was best if we didn’t stray away from the original
idea of forming Hospital Guide Foundation — to help people. We will stick to
not having any commercial transactions with hospitals and doctors and not
charging patients as this is a social cause and not a business for us. And to
our delight many doctors are supporting this social cause,” explains Manu.
The patient starts off with the personal health request through
the website www.HospitalGuide.in where they send a medical query. Then Ms
D’mello makes sure she calls up each of the patients individually. She says
that they manage to get a lot more information from speaking to the
patient/attendant than through the query sent through the website. “For
instance, there are times when people write to us wanting a doctor for the
liver and when we talk to them we realise there is a bigger problem that needs
to be addressed which is alcoholism. So the conversation with the
patient/attendant is important as it helps them build trust in us and we get
relevant information to guide them correctly. Of course this is kept
confidential,” Indiritta explains. After this, the cases are referred to a
panel of 3-4 doctors who decide on the course of action and they give
recommendations for the specialists that the patient should be taken to, which
is then communicated to the patient. The patients are usually given multiple
references so they get a better idea of the condition and the treatment options
they can pursue.
“It is extremely important that we remain completely unbiased
because we couldn’t have a system where we are looking out for the best
interest of the patients, if we were having any commercial tieups with
hospitals or doctors,” Mr Tripathi explains.
But the HGF’s role does not stop with just guiding the patients to
the doctors. “One of the best thing about the HGF is that Ms Indiritta, even
after getting me the appointment with the doctor, made several calls to follow
up on the treatment that was advised and she genuinely wanted to know how the
treatment was progressing,” Yasub said.
“The problem is not only about affordability but
accessibility. India has a dearth of doctors on the whole. And out of these
doctors, only 26 per cent of doctors are present in rural area with 70 per cent
of our population residing there. We want to address this problem in the rural
areas by connecting patients to doctors through technology — tele-medicine,”
says Indiritta.
Copyright
© 2011 The Asian Age. All rights reserved.
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