By Jaspal Singh,
mareez-e-ishq par rehmat Khuda ki,
marz barhta gaya joon joon dawa ki — Meer
Almost forty years ago I visited an old Baba in Arizona.He hailed from the Doaba in Punjab and had come to the US in the twenties of the last century.When I met him he was in his eighties.He had married a Mexican woman and had several children and grand children.Those days because of the racist immigration laws men from India could not marry white American women and they were not allowed to bring their families,meaning wife and children to the US.So many Punjabis married Mexican women.
We were greeted very warmly by Baba Dasaundha Singh’s family.They were so excited that he will be able to speak in Punjabi with someone.He had not spoken in Punjabi in many years,they told us.Baba was really excited to meet us.He came out of the house to greet us and had tears in his eyes when we asked how he was in Punjabi.Immediately he started instructing his family members to look after us really well as we were special visitors.He asked us about his village and told us about hardships when he came and the great work of Ghadar Party.Baba was fluent in Spanish and English besides Punjabi.
One of the grand daughters of the Baba told us that he has not been well and refuses to go to see a doctor.She asked us if we could persuade the Baba to go to the hospital.When we asked him in Punjabi to go to the hospital he replied,”sua deke maar denge”(they will kill me with an injection)
I thought of Baba after many years,after reading a report in the Journal of American Medical Association that medical care is the third largest cause of death in the US after Cancer and heart attack.It is reported that more than 225,000 people die every year due to medical care in the US.This includes more than 100,000 deaths due to adverse effects of medication,80,000 deaths due to hospital infection,20,000 deaths due to other errors ,7000 from errors in medicines and more than 12000 deaths due to unnecessary surgery.
Not only that, it has resulted in 116 million extra visits to the doctor,77 million extra prescription,17 million extra emergency visits,8 million hospitalizations,3 million long term admissions and thousands of extra deaths.The report points out that it has resulted in 77 billion dollars in extra costs.
A few years ago,a professor friend of mine had heart surgery,which went fine but he almost died due to hospital infection that he caught during recovery.
Baba Dasaundha Singh’s fears were justified,no wonder I thought of him after reading this report. I do not want to sound like an alarmist.But one has to be careful when one goes to a hospital.It is important to find out if there are alternative therapies available,and there are many around.More and more one has to be pro active about one’s health and find alternatives as more and more medicine and medical practice is becoming commercialized.One is no longer a patient but a consumer.The doctor has become a provider.Pharma companies and insurance companies make super profits.
All these things point out the necessity for change,an alternative to present social relations that exist in society.My doctor friends point out that this system is not working in spite of a huge cost to the society.Times are calling for new relations which are human centric and not profit centric.It can be done,as the present relations between humans were created by humans and they are not divinely mandated or intrinsic to some human nature.So they can and must change for humanity to survive and flourish.
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Jaspal Singh lives in Cambridge, MA.