Corona crisis has put our medical health system in the middle of all that needs to be improved urgently in India. Any nation, government and society will collapse without a good medical infrastructure, hygienic city conditions, quality air and water; all are crucial for the wellbeing of every individual of any country. The second wave of covid19 has taken a big toll on our central and state governments, raising the question of our preparation for the crisis. In particular, few states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, where we have seen a huge rise in the number of Covid19 cases and the associated deaths. According to media reports, these deaths are mainly attributed to the lack of beds, lack of oxygen and unavailability of medicines. According to the few state governments, there is no lack of oxygen or in covid19 associated medicines.
If so, then the problem arises from managing the supply of oxygen, beds and medicines and making it available at the right medical centres at right time, which indeed is dynamically changing in these crisis times. The one solution to the problem would come from connecting all the private medical units, government-aided medical centres, ambulance services and pharmacies with the real-time online database. This need to be done with mandatory sharing of the real-time availability of hospital beds, sale and refill of medicine stocks. Such an initiative would need the IT sector and medical industry to come together and make an efficient platform. With such a platform with the live sharing of the hospital’s beds, facilities, ambulance services and pharmacies stocks will solve problems at multiple levels. A few of the problems which can be solved by such an initiative are listed below:
1. The lack of bed in one hospital and availability in another, if it could be seen online then the patient in need could be rushed directly to the centre with available beds. This will save a lot of time and certainly many life.
2. The black marketing of the medicines like Remdesivir, Fabiflu etc. has increased in this crisis and if the government is controlling the stock distribution then it should provide real-time availability in the nearby pharmacies, visible to the hospitals and the patients as well. The digitally shared platform between the suggested units would help to curb and capturing the culprit of black marketing of the medicines in need.
3. In my experience, when a friend needed an ambulance, the ambulance services were over prices and less equipped. To facilitate easy access to these services provided by the government and private vendors, we need updated information on all the services with the facilities. Additional price capping on the vendors would help to prevent the exploitation of the individuals.
4. The supply of oxygen vs the number of patients in need at the hospitals may vary from hospital to hospital. For the same reason, we cannot blame the hospitals to be prepared and keep the stocks. However, the available stock should be publicly visible and should be the call of experts on how and when to use it. However, the digitally connected and visible platform should give the patient the freedom of choice for the best possible medical unit available for his/her need.
There are several ways in which such a digitally real-time connected database between the medical units-ambulance-pharmacies can help.
This digitalization will help our government and health industry to make the health services and its administration better, providing the citizens with better health security.
In the end, I would like to highlight that it is not only to deal with the current coronavirus crisis but to be prepared and be efficient for the future in every need of the citizens. I wish the government and the state government will overcome and win over this ongoing crisis. My best wishes to us in this fight.
Dr Abhishek Bharadwaj Sharma
