Three hospitals were
involved in treating my recent medical problem. My good blogger friend ER Ramachandran has
suggested in a comment on Life
without computer - 2 that I write about my experience, particularly about
the hospitals, the doctors and nurses.
Well, here we go.
In spite of my wife being
there I paid more attention to the nurses than I would have normally. The
reason was to confirm what I already knew. You must have read recently the
comment on Kerala nurses that a politician in North India
had made. According to him the nurses from Kerala are dark and ugly and that a
person would find it difficult to address them ‘sisters’.
In the three hospitals that
I spent time, almost all the nurses were fair and good looking. Even the darker
ones were attractive and pleasant. I feel that none of them would bother to
give the comic politician a second look. This quote should be enough to give a
clearer picture: “The high literacy rate and access to modern and progressive
education help the state churn out the most sought-after Nursing workforce in
the global labour market.” (Nurses
Abroad,10 Jan 2013)
According to Emerging Kerala Human Development Indicators
(HDI) in the State “are the highest in the country and even on par with some
developed nations.” Kerala’s longevity rate the highest and infant mortality
rate the lowest in the country. The
birth rate of 40% is lower than the country’s average. Even maternal mortality
rate (1.3/1000) is the least in India.
According to Wikipedia,
Kerala has the largest government network in India – 2700 medical institutions
offering 330 beds per 100,000 population. Apart from this there is a large
number of private hospitals, covering even the villages. They include several
multi-speciality and super speciality ones. Almost all of them are manned by
experts. As a result, medical tourism is developing into a growing phenomenon
in Kerala.
Actually, this makes the
choice of hospital when one gets sick rather difficult particularly in a city like
Cochin. I
picked the ones where I knew the doctors. That helped – comfortable rooms, best
medical attention and good food!
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