Health budget up by nearly Rs.4,000 crore

India's health budget has gone up by nearly Rs.4,000 crore to Rs.21,113.33 crore ($4.35 billion) with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Monday giving special emphasis to the rural healthcare. The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) that aims to provide quality healthcare to villagers Monday saw its budget allocation increase by Rs.2,057 crore. Describing the NRHM as an "essential instrument for achieving goal of health for all", Mukherjee in his budget speech proposed "an increase of Rs.2,057 crore over and above Rs.12,070 crore provided in the interim budget" he had presented before the general elections earlier this year. The flagship programme of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, the NRHM was launched in 2005. The aim was to improve availability and access to quality healthcare for people living in remote areas. The main focus is on 18 states that have weak public health infrastructure - Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Orissa, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. Hoping to strengthen the tertiary sector, the government is setting up six All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)-like institutions in the country and upgrading 13 existing medical colleges. While the upgradation is likely to be completed in the current year, the six institutions are likely to be operationalised by 2010-11, says the plan outlay of the union budget. For this project, Rs.1,447.92 crore has been earmarked. Aimed at correcting the regional imbalance in the availability of affordable and reliable healthcare services, the project envisages setting up AIIMS prototypes in Patna (Bihar), Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), Bhubaneswar (Orissa), Jodhpur (Rajasthan) and Rishikesh (Uttarakhand). The union budget has also allocated Rs.10 crore for the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Deafness (NPPCD). The pilot phase is being launched in 25 districts in the next two years and aims to prevent avoidable hearing loss and ensure early identification, diagnosis and treatment of ear problems responsible for hearing loss and deafness. The budget also allotted Rs.100 crore for kickstarting medical, non-medical and nursing courses in institutions under the health ministry for accommodating 27 percent reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBC). In its bid to develop, promote and make the Indian systems of medicines more scientific, the department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) under the health ministry was allocated Rs.734 crore. The finance minister in his 2009-10 budget also increased by 40 percent the allocation for the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), the health insurance plan that was launched last year. "More than 46 lakh BPL (below poverty line) families in 18 states and UTs (union territories) have been issued biometric smart cards" for the scheme, the finance minister said in his speech. He said this scheme "empowers poor families by giving them freedom of choice for using healthcare services from an extensive list of hospitals including private hospitals". "Government proposes to bring all BPL families under this scheme. An amount of Rs.350 crore, marking 40 percent increase over the previous allocation, is being provided in 2009-10 budget estimates," Mukherjee added.

http://news.in.msn.com/business/budget2009/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3069084

Campaign World No-Smoking Day

Recently internationally world no-smoking day was celebrated. Smoking as you know leads to lot of lethal diseases the important ones being various types of Cancer's. Also Dr. Anubiram Ramdoss, Union Health minister, India issued the policy of pictorial warnings on cigarette and tobacco packets. The UPA govt. kept its promise made to the NGO and doctors, by issuing pictorial warnings notification for all the manufacturers of tobacco products. Lot of NGOs and hospitals has applauded this move, which will help to curb intake of tobacco related products.

Check-out these links:

· http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Health--Science/Health/May-31-World-No-Tobacco-Day/articleshow/4596746.cms

· http://www.zeenews.com/news374447.html


There is enough awareness and publicity on this issue and even a survey can prove this amongst different socio-economical groups. The no-smoking initiative has lot of supporters from big business houses like Ambuja cements, Mahindra's, etc to celebs like Vivek oberoi, etc NGOs like Salaam Bombay Foundation, Heales, Indian Dental Association, etc.

Thinking this campaign from a Public Relations POV tells us how successful it is. The campaign is one of the most successful campaigns, much successful than any Tobacco manufacturing company's cigarette campaign. The campaign was able to lobby at policy makers level to create laws to curb tobacco intake by introducing no-smoking restaurants and no-smoking zones at public places. The campaign also informed all the stakeholders about the ill-effects of tobacco intake with the help of public service films, announcements, TVCs, etc.


· But has this campaign provided solutions for the tobacco addicts?

· If the smokers are doing something wrong, then what is the correct thing?

· How can they quit intake of tobacco?

· Any medicines available?


There are many such questions which the addict is searching for. The surveys often talks that out of every 10 smokers 7 die, 1 cigarette reduces 7 minutes of life, out of every 10 smokers 5 are looking for options to quit but the temptation is enough to push them back to smoking.

Has the campaign able to reduce smokers? The answer is a flat NO.

Except the fact that smokers need to quit and should overcome the temptation. Are their not enough anti-tobacco pills, nicotine gums, etc? The multi-nationals should enter and launch campaigns to promote de-addiction, should launch de-addiction centers for addicts who are looking forward for tobacco free life. Support groups for people looking to quit tobacco should be launched; this would help more people to quit. Just creating awareness and publicity doesn't accomplish anything except PUBLIC RELATIONS for the company or NGO.


To cut the long story short, it is high time just creating awareness, start providing solutions and help to give smokers a SMOKE FREE LIFE..

There are very less NGOs who really work towards helping the smokers to live a smoke free life http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Bangalore/How-to-quit-smoking/articleshow/4601306.cms

Alternative medicine scenario in India

Alternative medicine which comprises the other category of medical therapy or treatment has not yet got its due credits. This sector of medicine is yet to secure place in the minds of patients, the main reason for this is very slow healing process i.e. time consuming and also some are painful therapies. The sector is vast and each has its laws and concepts on healing.

Below is the range of different types of therapies:

Alternative medicines

1. Homeopathy
2. Ayurvedia
3. Unani

Therapy

1. Yoga
2. Acupressure
3. Acupuncture
4. Kerala Ayurveda massage therapy
5. Meditation

The best part of alternative medicine is that it has no side effects and they are natural. This medicinal procedure builds-up body’s immune system, so the body becomes strong enough to protect itself.

The main problem faced by alternative medicine is awareness in general public, except Homeopathy and Yoga of which the general mass are informed to a large extent. This can be seen from the statistics on the Homeopathic industry which reported an increase of 25% in last 5 years; compare to this Allopathy has grown on 2% in this fiscal. So imagine the growth, if these alterative medicines get same awareness as allopathy?

To start the alternative medicine sector should decide on the key messaging part for the general masses. They should hold ground level events to reach the target audience. This sector should also look at taping media to publicize successful cases and start support group, this will help to get across to its patients and solve queries. The strategy should also tap in film placements which influence the mass a lot. Only through awareness and word-of-mouth the alternative medicine market will grow.

Crisis in Healthcare industry

As this sector deals with life - every life saved translates into big publicity and every life lost translates into lot of negative publicity very difficult to erase.

Crisis in this sector is usually classified into the following
1. Death of patient
2. Sexual harassment charges
3. Medicine overdose
4. Duplicate drug

There are many situations where crisis can take place, but above mentioned are few of the important ones.

Incase of any crisis the thumb rule is:
1. It is very important to understand the crisis, talk to all the parties involved.
2. Inform the spokesperson and people affected to maintain a common statement for media. In the meant time setup an enquiry committee.
3. Keep media informed about the latest reports only after approval.
4. Get assistance of legal department/consultants.
5. Understand what media wants and diplomatically solve all the queries.
6. There are many aspects to deal with crisis so it is necessary to hire a communications agency.

Here I will quote a case study to better understand crisis
Molestation charges against male doctor by female patient during checking and no female attendant is nearby. And the doctor is not guilty, but how to prove it?

What, I have highlighted is an extreme crisis situation which can tarnish the image of the doctor as well as of the hospital. Here, it is important to understand the doctors’ side and the patients’ side of the story. Can schedule meeting with a psychiatrist of both the parties, whose reports can help to understand the reasons behind such incidence. The legal dept and the hospitals spokesperson should keep all channels open and interact with the media (the information shared with the media should be approved by the mgt). As far as possible the culprit should not speak to media and have faith in the hospitals management. If the patient is wrong their will be loopholes in her story which can surface during interrogation. It might happen that the patient was sexually starved and was trying to advance towards the doctor and he might have objected resulting in this claim. The other possibility can be that doctor was checking her heart beats and by mistake touched her breast. Only after discussions this type of case can be solved.

Once the case is solved both the parties (doctor & patient) should speak to media and convey the right message. Keeping media informed helps to gain positive respect from media which helps in the long run.

The rise of Homeopathy

Homeopathy medicine which can be referred as the third front in medicine after Allopathy and Ayurvedia is regaining its credibility in the recent times. The patients themselves have turned towards homeopathy after using allopathy and ayurvedia over the years.

Homeopathy was discovered just over two centuries back by Dr. Samuel Hahnemman, a German. But somehow the way this particular medicine follows was very time consuming and this became the main reason for drift in patients towards other type of medicine. Also, the media hardly recognized homeopathy and that it can cure patients of diseases. Homeopathy was also not able to prove itself with enough studies to ICMR or FDA, which hampered its further credibility. In medicine credibility is the most important feature and media helps to a large extent to establish it in the minds of consumers/ patients/ caregivers. Since allopathy was able to cure faster, the results were faster to experience, this form emphasized allopathy as a credible form of medicine.

But now the patients are more aware and they understand homeopathy as natural form of medicine i.e. it helps your body to fight the disease by using the same symptoms which was the reason behind disease. Homeopathy uses the law of similar for treatment. Small doses of the disease causing bacteria are given to the patient so the patient creates immune system for that particular disease and fights against to cure the patient. The same treatment style is used when treating any patient on bite by a poisonous snake, the medicines used to treat venom are manufactured using venom.

So homeopathy hardly harms our body or has any side effects, since the medicine is manufactured using the same symptoms which is causing the trouble..

Recently couple of doctors has taken initiative to promote Homeopathy form of treatment, and their efforts have seen the light of the day. Now the number of homeopathy clinics has increased to cater the new informed patients. These patients are opting for Homeopathy, post their experience of allopathy medicines which cause side-effects. Whenever we think about Homeopathy the first name which comes to our mind is Dr. Mukesh Bhatra, he is on the fore-front of the brigade to inform patients about homeopathy through his extensive columns in various media channels. There are other doctors like Dr. Rajesh Shah who reached out internationally through web to create awareness about this form of medicine.

Some reference websites

http://www.classicalhomoeopathy.com/
http://i-heal.blogspot.com/

Why doctors should opt for vernacular media?

Well, everybody knows that we require treatment from doctors as we grow older. It is also known fact that most old/aged people prefer vernacular media or newspapers, rather than any other media. Even the people late in 40s prefer vernacular media to keep themselves updated happenings. This can also be found from a small survey done at the doctors own clinic, where the doctor’s receptionist can ask the patients about which types of newspapers they read.

Vernacular media/publications are more reader oriented and they have more editorial content than their English counter-part. The vernacular publications provide the readers a taste of their own and culture. They give have special sections for readers on culture and old age medicines/therapies.

The vernacular media has lots of space for health news. As a matter of fact the vernacular media content is more for the reader to use, so they have a dedicated section for health and wellbeing related news.
It is quite easy for doctors to get featured in vernacular media as they have very limited amount of news to feature. They are most happy when any doctor promises them to provide a series of articles. A series of articles in vernacular publication better than on of small quote in mainline English media.
A doctor can easily establish a good rappo with editor or the chief of bureau of the particular vernacular publication. With this the doctors can pitch him to come on the advisory board for health news for the publication; this will help to get featured in the health pages. The publication benefits from having a doctor journalist on board and the doctor benefits news coverage.

Jagoore campaign for Tata Tea

Jagoore campaign for Tata Tea
The campaign started on a very good note.
Brand name - Tata Tea
Tag line - Jago re
Product features - Strong tea, aroma, strength in morning
The product came from a respectable industry stable i.e. TATA SONS. The group has enjoyed consumer preference traditionally.
The brand Tata tea was a known and well established brand in Indian markets. To create more brand recall and position the brand as top of the mind recall the brand launched the "Jagoore" initiative.
The company tied-up with NGO Janaagraha which works in the area of election and citizen rights. The initiative JAGOORE was launched to inform voters about their rights through TVCs, print, radio spots, online and on-ground events. Jagoore for your rights went well with Tata Tea Jagoore to a new morning. This initiative received excellent response by media and the citizens using the internet coz all the campaigns emphasized registering on http://www.jagoore.com/. But the question is has this campaign helped the brand or helped the NGO. I think this initiative has outgrown the brand, now people recollect Jagoore more with voting than Tata tea. Was this campaign necessary to reach consumers? Still the top of mind recall in terms of Tea for me is Brooke Bond or Taj Mahal.
Has the sales of Tata tea gone up to the expected level or have more people decided to vote. Doing BTL brand connecting activity helps the brands who cannot advertise or publicize, why was their a need for Tata tea to do this association? Also since Jagoore was associated with registering online the target consumers were from well-to-do family who drink tea based on taste and perception. So my question is how the sales have benefited from this initiative?