Author Archives: bhatiaaman

To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.

As an individual I am very conscious about my health these days as I am in my early thirties and I know I need to focus somewhat more to remain as energetic as I was in my twenties. When I discuss this with my friends and families I get avalanche of advices but most of these advices are converging on a mantra to have a healthy diet, do some exercise daily and focus on spiritual side such as yoga and meditation. All genuine advices, I love you all but with all due respect point is I have tried all of these and I am sure everybody of you out there must have tried some bits of these mantras sometimes in your life, but with the pace and stresses of life for a person like me, it is easy to lose focus and fall back to past unhealthy habits. Surely there are some much disciplined people out there who are sticking to the mantra; most of the people find it difficult.

Also with increasing cost of healthcare and in general everything all the health advisors are rightly advising to get medical insurance covers to cover one and his/her family adequately and most of the people I know are covered to some extent by insurance provided by either the employer or by themselves , but is the coverage adequate ? Are they covered for critical diseases? Do they know their health profile? Do they have some family doctor or a doctor who can they can reach for opinions? Do they know family medical history and how it can affect their and their kid’s health?

Some smart people out there will shout their heart out , yes I know I know , but for lesser morons like me , the answers seems in a sorry state , some yes some no some not clear , overall a nebulous feeling. In earlier times when we were kids and our parents and their parents were working, the scenarios were very different, families were large, societies were well bonded and most of the people were in government jobs or with public sector units who were taking care of health. Health cost were bit less and with the simple lifestyle they were living , lifecycle diseases such as diabetes, high BP etc were not that prevalent. But with today’s lifestyle which is even stressful for kids and with rising aspirations, competitions and living cost, looking after one’s health is becoming difficult day by day. Though the quality of health services has improved immensely yet access to them in a disciplined manner has become difficult and costly.

Need of the time is proper health management of individuals. In our country despite of so many qualified doctors and hospitals, it becomes difficult to get a right direction and ways to manage health. We all have been hearing from our childhood “Health is Wealth “ and this idiom is much more relevant in today’s time as it has been observed that many a times families loose all their fortune on health related issues. While we are young we think we are perfectly healthy and nothing can happen to us, but it takes one unfortunate moment and health starts deteriorating.

India has already been called as disease capital of the world and following facts compliment my viewpoint:

• By 2025, India will have the dubious distinction of having 70 million diabetics, 213 million hypertensive’s and 60 million arthritics. The cost of these including welfare losses is estimated to be Rs 15, 01,200 crores by 2015. According to the WHO report Preventing Chronic Diseases – A vital investment, 388,000,000 people will die in the next 10 years of a chronic disease. A significant proportion of this will be in India. 
• Only a quarter of the population can afford Western medicine, with the rest relying on traditional remedies or alternative treatments, such as acupuncture and Ayurvedic medicine (which can at least boast fewer adverse reactions).
• Eighty-one per cent of health care across India is paid from private funds, mainly individual pockets. To compound the problem, the booming economy has attracted millions into the cities and away from the country’s rural network of hospitals.
•  It is estimated that by 2020 cardiovascular disease will be the cause of over 40 per cent deaths in India as compared to 24 per cent in 1990. Globally, it causes 17.3 million deaths annually.
• Changing lifestyle pattern, coupled with lack of physical exercise has put 74 per cent of urban Indians at risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases (CVD), a recent study has revealed.
•  Research has found that 59 per cent of people between the age group of 30-49 years have high risk levels of cholesterol, while an additional 61 per cent in the 30-49 year age group are with dangerously low levels of HDL cholesterol.
•  In the 30-34 age group, 96 per cent of those who were taking medication for controlling blood pressure were at high risk of developing CVDs.
•  According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, in 2009 lower-income groups in India had less access to health care than 15 Asian countries surveyed, where, on average, only 55 per cent of health care is paid from private funds.
•  The number of inhabitants aged 60-plus is estimated to reach 189 million by 2025 – three times the 2004 total.
• A combination of the “thrifty gene hypothesis” (i.e. our genetic predisposition towards obesity and diabetes) and frantic lifestyle has brought us on the brink of a healthcare catastrophe.
• According to the WHO, India has an estimated 15 to 20 million asthmatics out of a worldwide figure of 100 to 150 million. It also accounts for 20 per cent of the world’s TB cases.

Though much is needed to be done in healthcare field in India by government as well as private bodies on an infrastructure as well as execution level, what I found lacking today is proper management of health history of individual, less personal connect between patients and doctors, low exposure to various health related products and in general less priority to our own health at a starting level.

By introducing Health360, a product to cover all aspects of healthcare of an individual from an individual’s perspective, we intend to start bridging the gap at the starting level and be ready for the future revolution which is bound to happen in India if we want to see India as a Healthy nation.

Continue reading →