| SHARDA
Trust has now decided to concentrate on
programmes for providing high quality
secondary and tertiary healthcare to the
urban poor. The logic behind this
decision was that SHARDA Trust should
concentrate on activities that others
generally do not undertake. The costs of
treatment for secondary and tertiary
ailments are generally high and the
access to these services for the poor is
very difficult. Our
experience show how difficult it is for
the poor to access secondary and tertiary
heath care. The difficulty in accessing
secondary and tertiary health care stem
from three reasons:
(i).
Ignorance and the hesitation on the part
of the poor to approach the right
specialists with right equipment.
(ii).
high cost of treatment with private
providers of health care; and
(iii).
poor quality of health service in public
hospitals.
The
root cause of all these difficulties is
the lack of return on investment the
nation makes in health care. So far, the
thinking in India has been that the
health care services should be priced
low. The experience shows that this
thinking has to change. This experience
also reinforces our judgment that the
corporate sector must play a leadership
role in this area. This is because
accessing high quality secondary and
tertiary healthcare requires ability to
establish networks with good local
hospitals, private nursing homes and
doctors and very flexible working
culture. These requirements bar the
patients from the socio economic
background we are working with, in
getting high quality treatment. Because
of our association with our parent
company Arvind Mills, it is much easier
for us to establish these networks and
provide help to the needy, whenever
required. Presently, our reach in terms
of number of patients and the variety of
diseases we are covering is limited
because we lack financial and human
resources but we are aiming to expand
this activity rapidly. We are at this
moment also not covering any Degenerative
Diseases other than Eye Surgery because
of the same reason.
To
provide high quality secondary and
tertiary health care to the persons from
the distressed areas, the Trust has set
up a network of specialists, hospitals
and charitable trusts. The Trust guides
the patients to the appropriate
specialist and shares the cost of
treatment up to 66% of the total. Between
January 1998 and September 2000, the
Trust has helped about 325 patients for
various diseases. About 225 patients were
helped for eye surgery and remaining for
burn and other diseases.
This
is what some of the participants had to
say about the programme. Maganbhai said
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