-Frontline.in The death of nearly 60 children in Gorakhpur because of the unavailability of oxygen can be directly attributed to the larger issue of drastic reduction in budgetary allocations for and the gross neglect of the public health system. THE death of almost 60 children, including infants, in the government-run Baba Raghav Das Medical College Hospital in Gorakhpur within a span of 48 hours raises several issues relating to the state...

-The Hindu Doctors’ objections to prescribing medicines by generic names fly in the face of a recent report on substandard drugs In a surprise move on April 17, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that his government will soon make it mandatory for doctors to prescribe medicines by generic names. The decision was to ensure drug prices remain affordable and patients get a wider bouquet of options instead of being forced to...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has asked its state and local units to raise funds from member doctors to organise conferences and functions instead of seeking sponsorship. According to IMA office-bearers, the decision was taken at a meeting on Wednesday in view of allegations about pharmaceutical companies and the device industry shaping the content and style of medical conferences. "If doctors want to meet at a...

-The Hindu The State has taken the lead in providing some essential and basic health-care training to these informal providers. In West Bengal, nearly 3,000 quacks — informal health-care providers with no formal medical education — are to be trained for six months. The crash course in medicine, and to be conducted by 130 trained nurses, is to begin from December 1. The objective is to provide these informal providers with a minimum...

-The Hindu THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health’s intervention has finally brought to close an eight-year-long campaign waged by K.V. Babu, a physician from Kannur, whose relentless fight against the Indian Medical Association’s (IMA) product endorsements and the legal hassles that followed had eventually led him on a collision course with the Medical Council of India (MCI). In 2008, Dr. Babu had complained to the MCI against IMA, which had signed...