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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Medical Student's Experience of Geriatrics in India: Summer 2011. (extracts)

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"My rotation focused on the health and social issues of the elderly population in India. I worked with a multi-faceted medical NGO in Bangalore, theNightingale Trust, whose realm includes home medical care, an inpatient dementia care unit, adult day care, and rural medical visits amongst other things. I also worked with a newer NGO in Mumbai known as Silver Inning Foundation which uses social networking and media to help address multiple human rights issues and needs of the elderly. My goals in this rotation were to learn about the health and human rights issues involving the elderly in India and compare them to the USA’s, share my knowledge and ideas with the Indian people I work with, and use my connections and what I learned in the future in some way to help address these and similar problems."....

...."The NGOs I worked with were helping to address these issues. Nightingale Trust was providing home care to people in the cities and the rural areas that once had no access. They also help underfunded people with adult daycare, abuse help lines, and sliding scale payments. Silver Inning foundation was using social networking and media to connect elderly people with each other and with the help they needed. They put poor people in touch with affordable old age homes, provided an elder abuse hotline, visited men’s and women’s group and provided them with information and ideas, and were constantly promoting awareness with innovative networking. I was a part of these NGOs as an observer and short-term worker. I think my presence benefitted the people I interacted with by sharing my knowledge of how the elderly are treated in America and by showing my support of the activities and the people in need." ...


..."The NGOs I worked with showed me a comprehensive view of the health and human rights issues affecting the elderly in India. Most of the medical problems were similar to what we see here. Diabetes is on the rise, mostly due to the influx of people into urban areas, and the availability of food, unhealthy food, in the cities. Also with urbanization come many sedentary jobs leading to lack of exercise and obesity. Other common things are common, such as hypertension, asthma, COPD, dementia, depression, and cancer. Dementia is receiving growing attention, and the prevalence is increasing due to the increase in life expectancy and increase in awareness"....



..."When I explored the Indian people’s perception of health care in their country I was surprised at how little people complained, which was much less than I feel we do here in America. I found myself looking for problems, asking leading questions to get to the bottom of it. What I found is that most people say they get medical care when they need it, and at not too high of a cost. Very few people have insurance, and there is no Medicaid or Medicare equivalent for the destitute and elderly. However with the lower cost of health care due partly to the lack of insurance companies, most people get what they need. I asked, “What if you get cancer? What if you have diabetes? What if you’re the poorest poor?” Most of the responses were basically that if you have chronic diseases there are schemes available to help, and that there are good government hospitals that are free to the poor. But when I got to the bottom of it I noticed that people were not getting the primary care they needed. Indians would rather treat themselves at home, with naturopathic or Aruvedic medicine or an antibiotic they picked up at a pharmacy without a prescription, than go to a doctor. With this pattern comes many late presentations of disease. This problem is sure to get worse with the increasing levels of diabetes, and this does not seem to be being addressed as of now"....


By Robin Reister
Medical Student
MEDI 7003 Reflective Essay
UTHSCSA




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