Great literary thinkers say that "every life has a story worth sharing". On the contrary, social thinkers believe that "there is nothing completely new in anyone's life". I think both the statements are correct. No two lives are completely identical. Similarly, every life, including the lives of so-called common people, has many interesting and informative stories. People who have really done something "out-of-the-box" are very rare!
Through Vivekananda Hospital, we tried to do something different in life. Instead of thinking only about personal gain and money, we added some social objectives to our profession and we achieved significant success through the combination. In today's context, ours was the first experiment of this kind. We have seen that, after this, many others are also successful in establishing such social oriented projects. The medical fraternity and the society have welcomed these efforts. No doubt, it is an acknowledgement of the success of the projects.
As far as we are concerned, I do not claim that we have done something really great. However, in last 20 years, I have observed that people associated with medical field are very curious, intrigued and sometimes bewildered about our project. Occasionally we met people who envied us as well how could you keep your personal ambitions aside and stay together for so long? How could you happily work despite limited salary? How did you fulfil your family responsibilities? How did you maintain professional quality? How did you manage to contribute actively in other social activities? How did the RSS ideology help or hurdle your path? How were your relations with the government? How was the co-operation from your families? Were there any clashes amongst the partners/trustees? Did your individual nature create any problems for working as a team? I have tried to answer most of these questions in this book.
Dr. Ashok Kukade requested me to write a foreword for his biography. It is an act of grandeur. To me, he is elder in age and action. He is a loyal disciple of RSS. That I do not belong to that ideology is well known. Even then he honoured me to pen this introduction. Hence I got this opportunity to express my thoughts after reading his biography.
The book tells us the story of Dr. Ashok Kukade as an individual. As also, it is more the life history of Vivekanand Hospital and Medical Foundation. More than that, for me it. Is all the more important since it is an attempt to find a solution to an overwhelming problem of the society. The problem is concerned with everybody around. What is that problem?
Revered Dada Dharmadhikari was once invited for inauguration of a hospital. Shri Dada exclaimed that "let your hospital remain deserted!". Actually for a healthy society, the need for hospitals and dispensaries should be extremely minimal. But then each one of us gets sick some time or other. Occasionally, serious disease is to be faced. Therefore, hospital and medical services have become an absolute necessity. However, there need not be too many hospital units. They should be limited in number. The proliferating medical profession today, and hospitals galore, is not a sign of healthy society but indicates a diseased society!
The hospitals themselves are not keeping well. Mahatma Gandhi in his write up in 'Hindswaraj' or even Elish in 'Medical Genesis', criticise the medical profession very strongly. Indian Medical Association strongly objected to the 'show' by a famous actor, under the banner 'Satyameva Jayate', for the strong criticism done on the medical profession. However the public was no way sympathetic to medicos. On the contrary the hospitals are attacked often, by disgruntled public, indicating dissatisfaction. Doctors, you are ill yourselves!
What is wrong with us all?
In capitalist society, medical services are transformed into business and now mostly to an industry. For any business or industry the main aim is profit. Therefore, the mounting costs in the medical profession is a great problem not only in our country, it has become global. In USA, per capita annual expenditure on medical services amounts to $6,000 (app. Rs. 3.25 lacs) People are relieved of their lifelong savings due to the over expenditure in their terminal illnesses, in a few weeks. Of the gross national income in US, 17% is spent on medical services. It has become a great burden!
**Contents and Sample Pages**
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