Public hospitals should be privatised for efficiency and accountability
Public hospital lack accountability which is the reason for increasing cases of medical negligence at these establishments. A two month old child lost his arm when an EGG machine malfunction resulted in a fire at KEM hospital recently and the death of a patient who died in an MRI machine at Nair hospital is still fresh in our memories. Negligence mishaps due to carelessness cannot be excused. Stringent punishment for non performance of expected duties with heavy penalties and fines would bring in professionalism.
Administration of public hospitals should be handed to private corporates for efficiency and accountability. A healthy nation is a progressive nation and it is the government’s responsibility to provide top medical facilities to its citizens at affordable cost. Cheap medical services doesn’t mean substandard facilities and a public -private partnership is the need of the hour to provide efficient medical aid to people where costs for poor are subsidised by the government through insurance schemes without compromising on medical facilities which should be the best and comparable with global standards.
S.N. Kabra
A great discovery
A 3000-year-old city, believed to be the remains of Alexander the Great, has been discovered in a joint excavation by archaeological experts from Pakistan and Italy in northwest Pakistan. Experts say that it is the city of Bazeera that they have discovered and this is a region, located in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which already made into the headlines earlier for its rich connection and bounty of human history of a civilisation five thousand years old. The discovery at Bazeera has traces of Hindu Temples and Life of Alexander the great and life even before that pinpointing to the historic richness of the place which definitely, if properly and diligently researched can reveal unraveled facts of the great history of our Indian subcontinent and facts specially linked to Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam before Alexander’s invasion. The UNESCO should directly monitor the work done in the site and must cooperate with the Pakistan government to monitor and see that damages aren’t caused by extremists or vandalists. Indian archeologists also must join the excavation as studies related to the site can truly help students of history and will be beneficial to the coming generations to know about our rich past.
M Pradyu
Regulate pricing of printer-cartridges
Largest-selling foreign company Hewlett-Packard (HP) marketing computer-printers in Indian market has Maximum-Retail-Price printed on ink-cartridges exorbitantly high even though it’s original cartridges available in wholesale markets of Nehru place and Nai Sarak in Delhi at much-much less than printed MRP. Even wholesale price for its ink-cartridges remain much higher around Rs 3000 making some Indian manufacturers marketing re-filled cartridges at around Rs 700 or so. Even re-fill can be done at just Rs 200 or so. But using re-filled ink-cartridges result in termination of warranty.
Condition should be imposed to allow manufacture of ink-cartridges in India by desiring Indian companies. Indian companies should also be authorised refill ink-cartridges without affecting warranty of printers. Maximum trade margin between ex-factory or import price and printed MRP should be fixed also to check bribing due to abnormally high printed MRP. Any foreign company selling its products manufactured in country other than that of the company, should be asked to set up its manufacturing unit in India like was done by Samsung to set up biggest unit for mobile-phones in the world in Noida (UP-India).
Bureau of Indian Standards BIS should call meeting of printer-manufacturers including representatives of foreign companies to minimise types of ink-cartridges. Presently HP has too many types of ink-cartridges of similar shape and size for their vast range of inkjet and laser printers. It is not difficult to standardise so many ink-cartridges in a limited number to be used uniformly in different models of inkjet and laser printers. Such standardisation will heavily bring down cost of ink-cartridges.
Madhu Agrawal
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
