Monday, June 19, 2006

millions are not enough...

Having finished my graduation recently and being jobless coz I was not qualified enough to work anywhere else other than apna India, I was forced into doing this 'observation' in a local hospital.

This is what I observed!!

The boss and all the staff in the department I joined are locals, except for one Indian who is in a pretty senior post. There are about 10 interns. These are fresh grauduates just like me, here for practical experience. There is no dental college in the entire country but surprisingly every primary health center in the remotest of the locations has a dentist. How? Well, students train themselves abroad in countries like UAE, Syria, UK, Ireland,Spain and India. They return with the degree to do a one year compulsory internship in the main dental hospital of the country. They are then posted to the various primary health centers. The system functions very well, coz, inspite of training all over the globe, the internship appraises them of the principles and practices followed in their country and streamlines the quality of treatment. The dental health and treatment options get standardised and unified through out the length and breadth of the country.

After working a little while here, these dentists go to the UK for further training and come back as specialists to work in their own country. It is part of the deal by the government. They pay totally for your education and you in turn work for your country. Nobody cribs coz the pay scale is very high.

Infrastructure is excellent and high quality materials flow like river no matter how costly they are. Sometimes, I feel like picking up even the wasted materials and shipping them back.Each day's waste I collect would suffice the treatment of atleast 10 poor people back home. To tell you some more..every patient that walks in to the government hospital here gets state of the art clinics with quality treatment using some of the world's best and widely used materials...all for free!! No minimal amount even for opening up a hospital file!!

This amount of standardisation of dental health, dental health workers (dentists and adjunct dental health workers),infrastructure and patient acceptance through out my country will take more than just money to establish.It needs foresight, planning, dedication, commitment and sincerity from a whole network of people that ranges from the level of the government to the mason who puts each brick in place to build the wall of the clinic.
Something that will take a whole generation and more to come into being.

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