Aditya’s 3 year old son was prescribed a drug overdose by a pediatrician for the recurring fever. This led to very severe consequences and the child needed ICU care for 3 days and a painful process of recovery due to this excessive medication. Aditya wanted to register his complaint against the pediatrician and the hospital but finds out that there is absolutely no framework for grievance redressal and there is a systemic unwillingness to have one. The prevalent attitude with the people managing the health care set-up’s is that such human errors are an inevitable artefact of the Indian landscape and there is not a need to address them and the hospitals do not have a legal or a moral responsibility to address them..

65 yr old widowed Chitra was admitted for a by-pass surgery in a leading multi-specialty hospital. She gathered information about the treatment costs and was given an estimate of the cost involved with the treatment and decided to go ahead with it. But the hospital stated in the middle that due to unexpected complications that came up during the surgery charges have become significantly higher than what she was told in the beginning. Neither she nor the ones who were caring for her were even briefed of such a possibility at any point in time before the start of the treatment. The difference in the rates were so significant that Chitra may not be able to meet that expenditure, which puts her in an un-enviable position of having to choose whether to continue the treatment or not in that hospital.. for not being able to afford it..

Does any of this sound too familiar an experience to relate to what you or your loved ones face while dealing with the health care set-up? Then you have certainly hit upon a web-page, which makes an earnest attempt at addressing one of the fundamental aspects of the complex issue, which has led the health care system to what it is now.

Abhay Shukla and Ramadoss Magesh had launched E-campaign for Patient Rights with the belief: to ensure that patient’s interests are best served in the existing healthcare system in India, we need a well defined regulatory mechanism that is defined to the minutest details on its implementation and larger consumer participation towards ensuring its implementation.

Their efforts need your support- please go check the web page and  find out how you can help.