Extra ordinary times need extra ordinary effort is easy said then implemented. Amid these unprecendented condtion where more than 5 million lives are lost to a microscopic organism
the medical infrastructure is not just under serious stress but is facing a grave question of sufficiency
to handle what could be a more compounding effect it is today.....
Even the greatest army world has ever witnessed gave up the conquest of world out of exhaustion which ended conquest of Alexander the great before conquering whole world. Will the present day war give similar result if the present medical staff exahust before we conquer the most contagious virus the world has ever witnessed ???!!!!
When we compare the present conditons to that of 1920s can we learn whichNOVEL ways did they use used during those days to fight present day NOVEL CORONA VIRUS is the question that flashed before me.
tackling the twin problems of plummeting economy and health crisis lets see how the mighty british have deal with great depression, spanish flu and world war have concided at same time.
Adressing the issue of economy:
The national war bonds, which paid out a rate of interest of 5%, were issued in 1917 as the government sought to raise more money to finance the ongoing cost of the first world war, which started with the issue of the first war loan in November 1914. The bonds were sold to private investors in 1917with the advertisement “If you cannot fight, you can help your country by investing all you can in 5 per cent Exchequer Bonds ... Unlike the soldier, the investor runs no risk.”
Present day donations are non refundable which means the financial burden is shared.
But after being paid 5% interest for a complete century a recpient said It is the people of Great Britain who must provide the cash with which to finance the war, and there is little reason to doubt that they can do it if only they will. A large part of the nation, instead of being impoverished by the war, has been enriched.
what can present day govt do?
GDP-linked bonds
The GoI may issue listed, Indian rupee denominated, 25-year GDP-linked bonds that are callable from, say, the fifth year. The coupon (interest) on a GDP-linked bond is correlated to the GDP growth rate and is subject to a cap. The issuer, the GoI, is liable to pay a lower coupon during years of slower growth and vice-versa. The callable feature from the fifth year till maturity allows the GoI to effect partial repayments during high growth years and when it earns non-recurring revenues such as proceeds from disinvestment of public sector enterprises (PSEs). The listing of bonds provides investors an exit option. Costa Rica, Bulgaria and Bosnia-Herzegovina issued the first pure GDP-linked bonds in the 1990s. Argentina and Greece issued warrant-like instruments similar to GDP-linked bonds in 2005 and 2012 respectively. India could learn from their experience.
Potential risk:
Specualtions on GDP projections that govt of india publishes may break trust of overseas investors Publishing reliable and timely GDP data is a prerequisite for the successful issue of GDP-linked bonds, which the GoI may use to part-finance the COVID-19 rescue package and to diversify its borrowing sources.
Adressing medical crisis
Mary Merritt Crawford, the only woman doctor at the Hospital during the war, later noted that war brought death and destruction, yet also opened the path to progress: “A war benefits medicine more than it benefits anybody else. It’s terrible, of course, but it does.”
What inspired these major advances in medicine? There was a deep need, and people stepped up to find solutions. The new technology of war—heavy artillery, long-range cannons, barrage shelling, and machine guns—rained devastation at unprecedented levels. Medicine had to try to keep up. One good example of this evolution is in facial reconstruction surgery. Soldiers survived having jaws and noses shattered by artillery fragments, so surgeons at the American Hospital and Val-de-Grace Hospital pioneered maxillofacial techniques, and at the same time, brought dentistry into the medical sciences in France.
Present day advancements to produce low cost yet effective ventilators and other equipment to abridge the gap of infrastructure is commendable and comparable to those advancements. But what about the just begining crisis of exhuasted and acute shortage of medical staff??? are we reaching that draconian stage of the warriors of Alexander??
What was done during world war:
All those who have perused a minimum of three years of medicine course were urged to step in those senior doctors to help. After the war those para medics had essential and all the necessary feather of war medalion and perfect experience whch helped them to transform themselves into great doctors human kind have ever produced...yes they were asked to step in to real practice with just a month of training....
Emulate those steps to fix human resource gap
I feel todays MBBS final year students could step in to assist the senior doctors in bare minimums like checking BP and fixing ventilators and which could keep the senior doctors aloof of the exaustion .... we have as many as 31920 doctors persuing the medical education who would come out to be house surgeons for an year... why cant we advance their arrival to the real feild not to take critical cases but atleast the milder ones and bare minimums of health checkups and moderations as an when required... it would be a great lesson to learn from the history.
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