In a belated response to honor a unattended wedding my family called on the grooms home. The family may not be poor but was definitely not rich. As we were in conversation with the family in the only room of their home I was aware that the bride of some 20 days was sitting in one corner with the groom. She was, to prevent wastage, busy mopping the container of butter with her fingers as the onlooker groom bore lusty expressions in his eye. With the space constraints for the newly wed perfect human bodies it is not unusual. She was a graduate and was doing what every one of us must do—save food items. One report says that if all cans and bags of eatables are thoroughly drained of edible contents the world can feed several of its hungry villages every day. I mutely appreciated her conserving effort and felt sorry for her that she will smell oily for her hugs, embraces and caressing at a time most wish to smell fragrant scents. For she has done enough charity for the hungry-though unknowingly- I gifted her with a perfume as a mark of respect to the philanthropy she performed though unwittingly. Bill gates a well publicized philanthropist offers charity for the treatment of HIV/AID to the mindless governments. What he does is to set well equipped treatments units with that money which is so enthusiastically inaugurated by ministers of the aided countries without understanding how they have harmed the health interests of their countries. A immediate fall out is that there is a demand to run these units thus the human resources are diverted from the already existing and successfully running health institutions which suffer a enormous loss and the patients receiving health services from those units are devoid of the services. Further when the charity stops these philanthropic units are shut as the home governments are short of finances to run those. Many of the readers will be aware that in our country on the day of visits to a state of the President; the prim Minster; the governor; the chief minister; the chief justice Hon supreme court; a state minister and under bjp even the RSS chief is provided medical cover. In order to do it how the specialist doctors are removed from busy public hospitals. As a result on that day the out door and indoor patients from even far flung areas are devoid of medical services and even the related emergencies of the doctor on VIP duties are referred to the higher centers. A team of specialist doctors roam around with the convoy of the enviously healthy VIP and consequently hundreds of needy poor patients suffer colossally. So is what happens when the mindless charity is accepted that the successfully running public health units suffer in order to run these temporary disease specific units. I do not know when the government of India will learn that the best way to reduce the disease load is to tackle the social determinants of health like potable water; sanitation in disposal of human waste; clean-hygienic-well ventilated habitation and not the arrangement to treat individual specific disease. Hence a review is needed to accept the disease specific charity as from bill gates –Clinton foundation and score others. Satirical though the governments and the corporate social responsibility driven charity need to be taught that the better philanthropy would be to donate the money to the government to spend it on the social determinants of health rather than as investment on disease specific endeavor. I can convincingly say that the bride in the description is far better philanthropic than Gates and Clinton.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 10:41:31 +0000
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