I like this story as it talks of a library set up in an Old Age home
by a retired CGHS doctor turned librarian. As suspected, the usage of
this unique library is low; The manager of Old age home is right when
she says that they are wary of accepting all donations of books as it
is difficult to maintain.-- Vyasamoorthy
And now for the news ----
===
A home for books
Alokparna Das,
Posted: Jun 24, 2012 at 0132 hrs IST
Source: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/a-home-for-books/966056/
Agatha Christie sits next to Roget's Thesaurus, and Japuji Saheb is
placed next to a translation of the Torah. More than 3,000 books —
both old and new — on subjects as diverse as ancient architecture,
literature, geography, health, religion, metaphysics, hobbies and even
journalism, are neatly stacked in a cosy library that also boasts of
some replicas of ancient Indian art.
It's an excellent collection, and the man who manages the library is
equally impressive — Dr Janki Ballabh Jha — a medical practitioner
fluent in at least three languages has translated the Gita into
archaic English verse that the US-based International Gita Society has
uploaded on the Net. The most interesting aspect of the library is,
however, its setting — an old age home.
Godhuli, the senior citizens' home run by the Servants of the People
Society, has become a landmark in Dwarka. Neat and clean with modern
amenities, facilities such as gym and parking, and pleasing environs,
it is home to around 60 people, who, like 80-year-old Dr Jha, have
chosen to stay here post-retirement.
The library is located on the first floor of the building, next to a
sitting area with comfortable chairs and sofas and overlooking a
garden.
"While most of the titles are in English, we have around 300 books in
Hindi and 150 in Bengali — mostly literary works," says Jha, who
speaks all the three languages. He is self-taught in library science,
and in literature his personal favourites are Shakespeare and Arthur
Conan Doyle.
Using the universal decimal code, he has catalogued the entire
collection under various heads, including something as unusual as
'Death, Funeral & Obituary'.
"It is neither unusual nor morbid," he counters. "It is a biological
inevitability and also at a higher plane, the final question,"
philosophises Jha, who retired as chief medical officer, CGHS, and
practised in his native village in Jharkhand for a while before
joining Godhuli. "I was the fifth resident to join this place," he
says while showing us a 1954 second edition Kemsley Manual of
Journalism.
The voluntary work of a resident-librarian is, however, not without
regrets. The well-stocked place gets few visitors. "One of the
residents, a PhD in Sanskrit, was a regular reader here, but now with
failing health and poor eyesight she is unable to come to the library.
A 93-year-old lady borrows books quite regularly. Apart from them, you
can say that I am the sole reader and keeper of this place," he says
with a wry smile.
Says Alka Mathur, Godhuli's manager, "Health and interest are the two
key factors; it's up to the residents to use the library." She adds
that a large number of books have been donated by individuals. "We are
careful not to accept too many old books as they are difficult to
maintain," she says.
Perhaps opening the library to the general public or even local senior
citizens, for a nominal fee, would have ensured that people use it.
"But the library is meant for residents of this old age home, so that
they can read in privacy and peace. Opening the library for others
would also mean security and other related issues for Godhuli," adds
Mathur.
Jha, meanwhile, is happy spending time in this little library when he
is not surfing the Net for the latest medical news.
========
Dr P Vyasamoorthy, 30 Gruhalakshmi Colony Secunderabad 500015 Ph
040-27846631 / 9490804278.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Pharma Industry : CDSCO is the culprit (State of Apathy in its extreme)
If you are interested in knowing how the pharma industry has been
taking us for a ride with the connivance of CDSCO, read this recent
Editorial from: Economic and Political Weekly. Other articles
circulated earlier spoke of pricing, costing, huge profits and
looting. This article talks of Govt allowing medicines to be produced
and sold without proper clinical trials or post marketing follow up in
the case of new drugs. Learn how drugs banned abroad are allowed in
India.
======================
State Apathy in Its Extreme
Vol - XLVII No. 24, June 16, 2012 Editorials
Drug regulation in India seems only to serve the interests of
industry; the citizen does not matter.
What does the union government do when a parliamentary committee,
after 18 months of painstaking investigation, reports that the Central
Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has been looking after the
interests of the pharmaceutical industry at the cost of the ordinary
consumer? And when the committee backs its indictment with detailed
case studies and offers recommendations? The government, of course,
appoints a committee to look into the parliamentary committee's
report!
The report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and
Family Welfare minces no words to describe the rot in the CDSCO. It
points out that "most of the ills besetting the system of drugs
regulation in India are mainly due to the skewed priorities and
perceptions of CDSCO. For decades together it has been according
primacy to the propagation and facilitation of the drugs industry, due
to which, unfortunately, the interest of the biggest stakeholder, i e,
the consumer has never been ensured." The sales turnover (domestic
plus export) of the India's pharmaceutical industry is estimated at
over Rs 1,00,000 crore a year. Ever since the patent regime was
modified in 2005, pharma multinationals have been jostling to expand
their footprint in India.
Even in a country accustomed to the knowledge that the citizen is the
least of the concerns of the State's many agencies, the parliamentary
committee's report is shocking. As it notes, medicines are the only
commodity where consumers cannot make informed choices. They depend
solely on three main actors: the drug regulators, the pharmaceutical
companies and the prescribing doctors. Therefore, the state's
responsibility to regulate the import, manufacture and sale of safe
and standard quality medicines should be "sacrosanct".
The parliamentary committee report is, however, replete with details
about what can only be described as criminal neglect. For example, 33
new drugs were approved between January 2008 and October 2010 without
clinical trials on Indian patients. Clinical trials help to identify
differences that can alter the metabolism, efficacy and safety of the
drug when taken by people of different ethnicities. There was no
"scientific" evidence to prove that these drugs are effective and safe
for Indian patients and no surveillance data on them was forthcoming.
However, the Drug Controller General of India can approve a drug
without clinical trials, in the "public interest". But the committee
noted that there is no explanation of what constitutes public interest
and none of the 33 drugs are meant for emergency treatments. The files
of three drugs thus approved had "disappeared" when the committee
asked for them. Again, out of randomly selected 42 drugs, the
committee found that 13 medicines banned in developed countries for
reasons of safety were being sold over the counter in India. It also
found that the "invisible hands of drug manufacturers" guided and
wrote the so-called expert opinion signed by medical professionals and
doctors (the annexures to the report carry photocopies of a number of
these opinions, some of them are identical!). There is no permanent
panel of medical experts attached to the CDSCO and individual doctors
and experts from prestigious medical institutions are asked to give
their opinions before the drugs are marketed. While the number of
applications for approvals has been growing rapidly, the CDSCO is
woefully understaffed to handle the approximately 20,000 applications
annually and myriad other tasks.
The report details numerous other problems in the approval. For
example, drugs not yet launched were already being sold in the market
and that too without any post-surveillance submissions. There is no
transparency in the selection of experts on the drugs advisory
committees. There is no mechanism for controlled post-marketing Phase
IV studies on patients which have helped developed countries to
identify major adverse effects and thus ban such drugs.
The committee has also noted that there are a number of allied issues
that have been neglected over the years. Among these are the severe
shortage of drug inspectors to visit the 10,500 manufacturing units
and 6,00,000 retail units and the machinery to enforce the Drugs and
Cosmetics Act and Rules in general. In the same budget session of
Parliament when the report was tabled, the government acted with
alacrity on the textbook cartoon complaint and the media too went to
town on the controversy. However, a report on such an important part
of medical care that deals with safe medicines for lakhs of people
received routine response from the government and cursory coverage by
the media.
The report has recommended that the mission statement of CDSCO be
formulated to convey in unambiguous terms that "the organisation is
solely meant for public health". The parliamentary committee's
findings should have galvanised the government into taking remedial
measures on a war footing and chalking out strategy for a complete
overhaul of the regulatory and approval process. The former should
include an immediate investigation into the cases of collusion between
CDSCO officials and certain pharma giants followed by swift punitive
action wherever necessary. There is no doubt that this report lists
the causes, symptoms and cure for the deep-rooted malady that afflicts
the CDSCO. If only it had prescribed a medicine for the state's apathy
towards the health of its citizens.
======
Dr P Vyasamoorthy, 30 Gruhalakshmi Colony Secunderabad 500015 Ph
040-27846631 / 9490804278.
taking us for a ride with the connivance of CDSCO, read this recent
Editorial from: Economic and Political Weekly. Other articles
circulated earlier spoke of pricing, costing, huge profits and
looting. This article talks of Govt allowing medicines to be produced
and sold without proper clinical trials or post marketing follow up in
the case of new drugs. Learn how drugs banned abroad are allowed in
India.
======================
State Apathy in Its Extreme
Vol - XLVII No. 24, June 16, 2012 Editorials
Drug regulation in India seems only to serve the interests of
industry; the citizen does not matter.
What does the union government do when a parliamentary committee,
after 18 months of painstaking investigation, reports that the Central
Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has been looking after the
interests of the pharmaceutical industry at the cost of the ordinary
consumer? And when the committee backs its indictment with detailed
case studies and offers recommendations? The government, of course,
appoints a committee to look into the parliamentary committee's
report!
The report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and
Family Welfare minces no words to describe the rot in the CDSCO. It
points out that "most of the ills besetting the system of drugs
regulation in India are mainly due to the skewed priorities and
perceptions of CDSCO. For decades together it has been according
primacy to the propagation and facilitation of the drugs industry, due
to which, unfortunately, the interest of the biggest stakeholder, i e,
the consumer has never been ensured." The sales turnover (domestic
plus export) of the India's pharmaceutical industry is estimated at
over Rs 1,00,000 crore a year. Ever since the patent regime was
modified in 2005, pharma multinationals have been jostling to expand
their footprint in India.
Even in a country accustomed to the knowledge that the citizen is the
least of the concerns of the State's many agencies, the parliamentary
committee's report is shocking. As it notes, medicines are the only
commodity where consumers cannot make informed choices. They depend
solely on three main actors: the drug regulators, the pharmaceutical
companies and the prescribing doctors. Therefore, the state's
responsibility to regulate the import, manufacture and sale of safe
and standard quality medicines should be "sacrosanct".
The parliamentary committee report is, however, replete with details
about what can only be described as criminal neglect. For example, 33
new drugs were approved between January 2008 and October 2010 without
clinical trials on Indian patients. Clinical trials help to identify
differences that can alter the metabolism, efficacy and safety of the
drug when taken by people of different ethnicities. There was no
"scientific" evidence to prove that these drugs are effective and safe
for Indian patients and no surveillance data on them was forthcoming.
However, the Drug Controller General of India can approve a drug
without clinical trials, in the "public interest". But the committee
noted that there is no explanation of what constitutes public interest
and none of the 33 drugs are meant for emergency treatments. The files
of three drugs thus approved had "disappeared" when the committee
asked for them. Again, out of randomly selected 42 drugs, the
committee found that 13 medicines banned in developed countries for
reasons of safety were being sold over the counter in India. It also
found that the "invisible hands of drug manufacturers" guided and
wrote the so-called expert opinion signed by medical professionals and
doctors (the annexures to the report carry photocopies of a number of
these opinions, some of them are identical!). There is no permanent
panel of medical experts attached to the CDSCO and individual doctors
and experts from prestigious medical institutions are asked to give
their opinions before the drugs are marketed. While the number of
applications for approvals has been growing rapidly, the CDSCO is
woefully understaffed to handle the approximately 20,000 applications
annually and myriad other tasks.
The report details numerous other problems in the approval. For
example, drugs not yet launched were already being sold in the market
and that too without any post-surveillance submissions. There is no
transparency in the selection of experts on the drugs advisory
committees. There is no mechanism for controlled post-marketing Phase
IV studies on patients which have helped developed countries to
identify major adverse effects and thus ban such drugs.
The committee has also noted that there are a number of allied issues
that have been neglected over the years. Among these are the severe
shortage of drug inspectors to visit the 10,500 manufacturing units
and 6,00,000 retail units and the machinery to enforce the Drugs and
Cosmetics Act and Rules in general. In the same budget session of
Parliament when the report was tabled, the government acted with
alacrity on the textbook cartoon complaint and the media too went to
town on the controversy. However, a report on such an important part
of medical care that deals with safe medicines for lakhs of people
received routine response from the government and cursory coverage by
the media.
The report has recommended that the mission statement of CDSCO be
formulated to convey in unambiguous terms that "the organisation is
solely meant for public health". The parliamentary committee's
findings should have galvanised the government into taking remedial
measures on a war footing and chalking out strategy for a complete
overhaul of the regulatory and approval process. The former should
include an immediate investigation into the cases of collusion between
CDSCO officials and certain pharma giants followed by swift punitive
action wherever necessary. There is no doubt that this report lists
the causes, symptoms and cure for the deep-rooted malady that afflicts
the CDSCO. If only it had prescribed a medicine for the state's apathy
towards the health of its citizens.
======
Dr P Vyasamoorthy, 30 Gruhalakshmi Colony Secunderabad 500015 Ph
040-27846631 / 9490804278.
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