Sunday, January 8, 2012

Hello Delhi Belly

So this is my first blog post, and I am still unsure of what to say. I walked into this trip with a little trepidation, due to the feedback or lack of feedback from my friends that had already visited India. Whenever I would ask someone about their trip they would not have much to say, which I took as negative. Now I realize that their silence is because it is hard to find words to describe India and you have to experience the place to understand even the surface of this country. With a population of 1.3 billion (1/6th of the world’s population), India provides it visitors with a sensory overload….. everything is magnified.

India is also a place of contradiction. The landscape has vibrant colors and beautiful monuments, but they are covered in trash. Also, they have hospital facilities that look similar to ones in the states, and they have hospitals that look completely run down. We got a tour of both these types of facilities. The first is Max Healthcare and the second is A.I.I.M.S.

A.I.I.M.S., the premier medical college and teaching hospital in India, is a government facility with 1766 beds. The place is absolutely enormous, and looks like a medical factory just processing one person after another. Although it seems run down, looks can be deceiving because AIIMS offers some of the best care in India. On the other spectrum is Max Healthcare, a private hospital. Walking into this place you would think you are at Beth Israel if it wasn’t for the Devanagari script written on the walls.

As the government spends more money on healthcare, the question is where should this money go?

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