Warning picture on tobacco products from 31st May 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Now it is the time to quit smoking! Smokers may think twice before lighting up from Sunday. All the harmful health effects of tobacco like cancer & death, deformity and sterility would be highlighted in the form of pictorial warnings on tobacco products starting Sunday, May 31 2009.Starting May 31, the World No Day, all tobacco products will carry graphic pictorial warnings like the skull and cross bones or a cancer-disfigured face or diseased lungs to highlight the hazards of tobacco intake.
The pictorial warning would occupy 40 percent of the space on the front of all packets of tobacco products.
"According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India records about 800,000 tobacco deaths every year or 2,200 deaths a day. The pictorial warnings are a big breakthrough. They will help in sensitising people about tobacco hazards and new tobacco consumers will think twice before taking these products," Bhavna Mukhopadhaya of Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI) said.
In India, over half of men (57 percent) in the age group of 15-49 years use tobacco in some form and over a tenth (10.9 percent) of women in this age group also use tobacco, according to a National Family Health Survey conducted in 2005-06.
Azad vows to respect autonomy of institutions
Health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad's promise to put the autonomy of the country's premier institutes over self may act as the much needed balm for a deeply divided AIIMS.
After taking over as health minister, Azad made it clear that "individuals will come and go but the supremacy of autonomous institutions should not be diluted" and must be allowed to function in its own area of expertise.
"I am interested in strengthening institutions. We should not allow anybody to dilute the supremacy of institutions, whether it is AIIMS or the health ministry. AIIMS is a premium institute and we should not lower its image," Azad said.
AIIMS, not so long ago, had witnessed a bitter turf war between former health minister A Ramadoss and former director of the institute Dr P Venugopal after the cardiac surgeon complained of interference in the functioning of the institute by the minister.
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Doctors perform bypass surgery on 20-month-old boy
Stawan Bijal Shah is now likely to live a normal life after undergoing coronary artery bypass for a rare heart disease in a Delhi hospital, with the 20-month-old possibly becoming the youngest patient in the world to undergo this surgery, doctors said.
Shah underwent a coronary artery bypass surgery on Monday after he was found to be suffering from the Kawasaki disease, which damaged his heart. He is now recuperating in the intensive care unit (ICU) of Batra Hospital here where doctors believe that Stawan is the youngest child in the world to undergo such surgery.
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Post Graduate Medical Degrees from UK, US and Canada Recognised in India
Friday, May 29, 2009
Union Health Minister of India Anbumani Ramadoss has said that Union Government of India has taken a unilateral decision to recognise postgraduate degrees in medicine obtained from foreign institutes in UK, USA, Canada and New Zealand. This would mean that Indian doctors who have obtained their postgraduate qualifications from these countries would be able to legally practice in India as a specialist in their areas of post graduate qualification.
This is a welcome move from Indian government as the demand for the recognition of such qualifications has been a long standing demand of Indian medical diaspora.
The Health Minister clarified that this decision doesn't come under the purview of Indian Medical Council (IMC). However he indicated that the decision would be informed to IMC.
"In fact this unilateral decision of the union government to recognize foreign degrees in medicine would help thousand of Indian doctors in UK who are out of job because of recent changes in the recruitment of foreign doctors," Ramdoss said. Anbumani Ramadoss is the Cabinet Minister in India in Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. He was elected to the Parliament as a member of the Rajya Sabha in 2004.
Are Junior doctors being made soft target in West Bengal?
There was a news about death of a three months old child in RG Kar Medica College on 24th Mays news paper.The child expired in the deptt. of Pediatrics in that hospital on 23rd May.Relatives of the deceased showed agitation in the hospital,they also alleged that the death of the child was due to negligence, as stated in the news paper.They again said that they were told to bring blood for the child on 22d May,they did it accordingly,but doctors did not transfused the blood and the patient died.
As usual the College officials made a inquiry to this matter.In today's Ananda Bazar Patrika the results of the inquiry came out.And one House staff & two PGTs were held responsible for this event.The college officials held them responsible for not transfusing the blood. The Principal,RG Kar Medical College also said that the College Council will decide about the punishment of the acused.
My question is why only the Juniors are held responsible?Why the Visiting Physicians & RMOs won't be responsible?Is it just the duty of the junior doctors to run the hospital?
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