Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Tuesday, November 17. 2015

The barefoot doctors of India


India has to be one of the most complicated nations on earth. It is not really a nation except nominally. It's an antique empire with little except a corrupt, incompetent, and inertly-lazy bureaucracy to duct tape it together.


It seems unlikely to me that government could manage medical care there because it can't manage anything else.  India Is Training Quacks to Do Real Medicine


Well-trained paramedics and EMS-type people can do a lot of good, if they have the skills to decide what needs more expertise and what does not. Even the best-trained MDs often get that wrong.

Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in Psychology, and Dr. Bliss at 14:00 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

India's best bang for the buck investment for improving public health would be to increase coverage for potable water and sewage treatment. And, like you say, good nurses and paramedics.

From 1973 to 1990, Chile's rank in Life Expectancy for Latin America went from 8th to 3rd. From 1973 it went from 9th to 3rd in Infant Mortality in Latin America. Yet during this time its rank of 10th in Physicians per 1,000 inhabitants in Latin America did not change. Chile achieved this improvement by improving potable water and sewage treatment coverage, and by improving health care for the poorest- and by programs like nutritional assistance for the poorest children.

[Physician data for 1970 and 1990]
Combating Poverty: Innovative Social Reforms in Chile During the 1980s

World Bank Development Indicators
#1 Gringo on 2015-11-17 15:18 (Reply)
"a corrupt, incompetent, and inertly-lazy bureaucracy to duct tape it together."

in other words it's just like just about every other country in the world including the US and every single European country.
#2 J.T. Wenting on 2015-11-18 00:50 (Reply)
You've made reference to paramedics before, and you've always been laudatory about us. As a metro DC-area paramedic supervisor (32 years on the job), that really means a lot to me. Most people don't realize that--particularly over the last dozen years or so) paramedicine has truly grown into its own medical speciality. I also instruct at the college level, and I speak often about knowing your scope of practice and knowing when to seek advice from an ER doc. Thanks again; I always look forward to your posts, particularly about food.
#3 Doug on 2015-11-18 15:05 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.