Despite working in a challenging environment, paediatricians in India enjoy a close bond with patients I COMPLETED MY Masters in paediatrics from a Government Medical College and Hospital in a small town, Gwalior. Currently, I am Dr Deepak Ugra practising as a general General paediatrician in a statePaediatrician of-the-art tertiary-level Lilavati Hospital & private hospital in Research Centre Mumbai city. The majority of the Indian population has very limited access to public health systems. In India, healthcare comes with a price that only a marginal percentage of the population can afford. Besides, healthcare in the public sector varies widely from excellent to very poor, primarily because the workload on the healthcare personnel in this sector is back-breaking. The private healthcare system also ranges from being mediocre to excellent. Most people in the medical profession here are in for the love of this job. The healthcare system in the private sector includes both small nursing homes and big corporate hospitals. The small nursing homes often employ semi-qualified staff who may have work experience but do not hold the required medical degree. This is definitely one of the major challenges faced by paediatricians in India on a daily basis.
“Paediatricians in India strike a close bond with the child and the family, so much so that we are often counted as an integral part of the family�
Working with limited resources in most set-ups is quite daunting. Investigations on children, who are not as vocal as adults, cannot be done so freely to back up one’s clinical judgement. Often, paediatricians have no option but to take calculated risks which can be very stressful for us as the outcome cannot be predicted. We also have to deal with parents who come from all kinds of economic strata and literacy levels.
Helping the have-nots Yet another challenge for paediatricians in India is that this is a field in which many other specialties, such as family physicians and general medicine, dabble in and these compete with qualified paediatricians or make the situation very complicated and difficult at times for us with partially treated and thus mismanaged cases. In India, paediatrics is a less well paid field due to the existing social structure and glamour associated with some other fields. Indian society sees a huge divide between the haves and the have-nots, the latter being a much larger number. Less than optimum nutrition for all-round growth and development is the chief problem the young ones who come from the lower income group of society face. To add to this,
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A paediatrician in India there are limited educational opportunities at their disposal and also limited assistance from less expensive public healthcare systems in cases of chronic ailments or emergencies. This sadly results in unprecedented infant mortality deaths with many children not living beyond five years of age. Serious problems relating to both physical and mental wellbeing among children exist on the other side of the spectrum too. Viral infections and allergies, obesity, social media addiction, poor physical fitness along with poor selfconfidence and self-esteem that culminates in depression are serious ailments. We have started observing this growing upward trend in children belonging to affluent and higher middle class families. Paediatricians in India like myself are able to strike a close, loving and genuine bond with the child and the family, so much so that we are often counted as an important and integral part of the family set-up. It is a matter of great pride that, over the years, there have been many public health achievements in the field of paediatrics in India and we hope and pledge to keep this an ongoing process.
Above: Deepak with his colleagues Top: Deepak currently works in a state-of-the-art hospital
Milestones
WINTER 2020
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