Yousuf Raza – Wounded Healthcare What Did We Learn
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Alright, bismillah wa salatu wa salam wa la
rasoolillah.
Assalamu alaikum everybody.
Assalamu alaikum Dr. Arooj, Dr. Asma and Dr.
Murtaza.
Wa alaikum salam.
Wa alaikum salam.
Okay, so our campaign is coming to a
conclusion.
It is coming to a successful end, alhamdulillah.
And the way we started, the campaign team
that you see in front of you right
now, we started off by talking about why
this campaign is important, why we are talking
about wounded healthcare.
Now we will tell you what we have
learned over the past 6-8 weeks, what
feedback we have received, and are there any
final comments or qualifiers, you know, something we
want to conclude this particular campaign with before
we move on to Ramadan and our next
campaigns.
So that's what we will begin with.
I will go in turn.
Arooj, let's start with you.
How was this experience?
How was managing the wounded healthcare campaign and
the response you got?
Experience?
It was both.
First of all, for me, it was a
really, really informative experience because a lot of
things that we shared, mujhe honestly khud bhi
nahi pata tha unka.
Once I started working on it, then I
realized ki acha ye cheez aise hoti hai.
We would be discussing those problems, but bahut
superficial se discussion hoti thi.
We would blame government, we would blame pharma
companies, we would blame doctors, and then end.
But when we started working on this, we
realized ki how complicated things are.
There is no single person or single organization
responsible for these problems.
So that was even our motivation behind it
ki humne ye cheez public ke saath share
karni hai ki wo jo ek media ki
taraf se sirf doctors aate hain, har problem
ki wo zimadar hote hain aur har problem
ka responsible wo hote hain.
That's now how it is.
So in this way, it was really informative
for me, a really good experience, and things
we used to take very light ki aap
chalein ho jata hai, khair hai, sab karte
hain.
But we realized uske consequences public ke liye
aur humare even humare future ke liye kitne
grave ho sakte hain.
Toh cheezein humne kaafi zyada share bhi ki
hain, during our last psychpatic discussion, during our
sessions with different students, especially de-pharmacy students
ke saath.
And feedback, accha bhi aaya, bahut se logon
ne appreciate kiya.
Jaise jaise maine kaha ki mujhe bahut se
cheezon ka pata nahi tha, mere colleagues ne
kaha ki unne bahut se cheezon ka pata
nahi tha.
They are hearing it for the first time,
aur kaafi appreciate bhi kiya.
General public ki tarah se accha response aaya
hai ki bahut se cheezein unne nahi pata
thi, aur first time unko pata lag rahi
hain.
And there was backlash as well.
Because we are doctors, and we are talking
about it all.
Aur jab kuch hota hai, kuch logon ki
taraf se ek perception aati hai ki wo
post ek dekhte hain, general ek wo tag
lagate hain, this is against medical profession.
Aur phir wo uspe aate hain ki aap
doctor ho ke aisi baatein karte hain, aapka
toh license cancel ho jayega, aur aapki kya
iraad hai hi future mein, aap khud toh
nahi koi company kholna chah rahe hain, pharma
company kholna chah rahe hain.
We even got these kind of feedbacks.
Toh bahut se accha feedbacks bhi aaye aur
bahut se negative feedbacks bhi aaye, lekin I
guess that's a part of it.
That means we stepped on the right trail.
Exactly.
And then there was one common feedback jo
bahut zyada receive hua, that was a comment,
where are the solutions?
Solutions kyun pe kyun nahi baat ho rahi
hai, sirf problems pata rahe hain, wo toh
hume bhi pata hain ki problems itne arche
se hain, where are the solutions?
Toh mere khaal mein this psychpatic is really
important to clear this part, ki humne solutions
ko kyun nahi highlight kiya.
And we'll talk about it.
Great.
Thank you.
Thank you, Dr. Arooj.
Ji, Asma, how was your experience and what
feedback did you get?
Experience was, like Arooj said, bahut informative raha
throughout, kaafi zyada.
In fact, more than 50% of the
stuff and research that I came up with,
uska mujhe khud idea nahi tha.
Informative bhi raha aur ek tarah se sort
of disappointing bhi tha, ki hum kis taraf
jaa rahi hain.
This is not where medical professionals, this is
not where healthcare systems should be heading.
We have made it more of a business
than kisi ek ailing person ki kudli phirham
karne ki bide.
We have made it a business.
Aur like Arooj said, ki iski intricacy poori
system ki bahut khul ke saamne aayi.
Kaafi zyada hume players ka pata hi nahi
tha, jo isme asal jo players hain unka
pata hi nahi tha, wo ab hume pata
chala.
And this is what we aimed, ki hum
public ke saamne lekar aayi, kyunki frontline workers
wohi doctors hain, and they get all the
blame.
To wo ek tarah se wo dissipate ho,
aur usse bhi zyada yeh aim tha, ki
information sabko honi chahiye, because this is a
very basic issue, aur yeh sabko pata hona
chahiye.
Ek cheez, jo backlash itna toh mujhe nahi
mila as such, sabki feedback positive hi rahi,
lekin throughout this campaign when I was sharing
stuff and reading, toh mera ek topic tha,
incentives, modifying the behaviours of doctors.
Toh usme baar baar mujhe yehi yaad aata
tha, ki I had a friend in medical
school who used to not take lunches and
did not used to go to conferences.
And even being a doctor, matlab, and I
knew this was wrong, lekin I did not
see us waqt foresight mein ki yeh kitna
impact kar sakta hai.
Ek samosa, ek tehzeeb ka dabba uthana se
yeh kya pharma ko help ho jayegi meri,
main toh koi dawaai bhi nahi likh rahi
hai as a medical student.
But after doing this research, after going through
this campaign, mujhe bahut acha andaza hua ki
waqi yeh kis tarah se hum is poore
culture ko perpetrate kar rahe hain, foster kar
rahe hain.
Aur mujhe phir wo friend yaad aaya bahut
zyada, ki he did not used to take
it.
Toh yeh ek chote chote steps hain, solutions
toh waqi mere baas bhi koi itne major
thing hain is level pe.
But this was one thing that I kept
on reminding myself ki we do what we
can do.
Good, thank you.
Thank you for sharing that.
Asma, Murtaza, as the question comes to you,
it becomes all the more difficult, right?
Because all the main things have been said.
And we can't hear what you're saying.
So you're going to have to log off
and log on and then we'll see.
We'll come back to you.
Okay, so I think the both of you
nailed it, right?
Jo complexity hai, his situation ki yeh simplistic
answer saying ki yeh bura hai, yeh nahi
hona chahiye.
Yeh pharma ka kusoor hai, yeh doctoron ka
kusoor hai, yeh politicians ka kusoor hai.
I mean that's just, what is that telling
anyone?
What is new and what we're finding out?
Murtaza, let's try that again.
Are you back?
Yes, can you hear me?
Okay, so before we lose you again, your
experience and the feedback you got.
I think the feedback was mostly positive because
it's going to be shocking for some of
them.
But as far as the public is concerned,
I think they're the ones we were sort
of hoping to stimulate.
With these conversations.
So I think at their end, it was
mostly positive.
Skeptical side, that was from the medical community,
obviously.
As expected.
Great, okay.
So nahi, I think that was expected.
That says that we have stepped on toes.
I mean, agar hum itne zyada masayal ke
baare mein baat karein and saare sirf nod
karte rehen, then we may not be coming
out clearly enough as to how the responsibility
is shared.
And we know how that works, right?
When you're talking about something that other people
are either not talking about, or they are
not, or they are a part of the
problem, right?
And not talking about it is also being
a part of the problem.
Then you stimulate something inside of them.
Some sort of guilt, some sort of conscience
is triggered.
Aur usko satisfy karne ka eki tariqa, usko
chup karane ka, do tariqe hain actually.
Ek aap maan lo, sun lo, appreciate kar
lo, khud kuch tabdeli raane ki koshish kar
lo.
Doosra hai ki aap bhadak utho, aur aap
ilzaam lagana shuru kar do, aur aap agale
ke baare mein suspicious hoche, tumhara bhi koi
agenda hoga, tumne bhi koi pharma company kholni
hogi.
Theek hai, aap humari judgements, humari intentions, humari
motivations ko zaroor psychoanalyse karein.
Be my guest.
And I'm sure you'll find something there.
We're not angels, but what good does that
do you?
What good does that bring to the problem
that we're talking about?
Is that where we want this conversation to
go?
Fair enough, we can turn this into a
shouting match, us versus you.
But that's immaterial, so we try not engaging
in those shouting matches.
Okay, so there's a bunch of questions that
we got.
A lot of people asked us a lot
of things, and we're going to try to
clarify some of those confusions as best as
we possibly can.
I think one of the questions that we
got, bringing this topic into the light was
a brave and courageous act.
Thank you for saying that.
Did you receive any hate because of it?
Some of it you guys already talked about.
Is there anything else you want to share?
We spoke about the negative feedback and the
criticism that we got.
Do you want to add to that in
any way?
Generally, not specifically hate.
There was no such feedback or response.
But there was one thing that surprised me.
People think that when you are from a
field, you shouldn't talk anything negative about it.
However, to really criticize something, or to be
really honest about something, you need to be
a part of that field, you need to
understand everything about it, you need to personally
face it, and then you need to come
up with it.
But I found this very strange.
A general said, why are you talking about
this when you are a doctor?
That was one thing that I thought I
would share with the general public.
This is the right way.
When someone comes from outside and criticizes our
field, we have a lot of questions.
Have you experienced this first hand or not?
But these are the things that we experienced
first hand.
And then we started working on it and
then we shared it.
So, this was one thing.
Generally, we didn't receive any kind of specific
kind of response.
I guess, maybe it might come.
Sometimes things get circulated.
They might not have reached the right persons.
But when they reached, they came.
But so far, there hasn't been such a
severe backlash.
And it couldn't have come now, given the
timing.
How many people were we able to reach?
If they were to criticize us in any
way, or they were to respond to our
criticisms, that's just giving us the kind of
marketing they don't want to give us.
And allowing us to have an impact that
we otherwise cannot have.
Not yet, at least.
We're too small of a company and a
campaign.
We have a very limited social media presence.
We shake the corridors of power as such.
We can't do that.
And I think what you just said, Urooj,
that's so incredibly important.
The criticism we receive is always from outside.
Lawyers are criticizing doctors.
Doctors are criticizing lawyers.
All politicians are being criticized.
Politicians are criticizing other political parties.
University people are criticizing Madrasa people.
Madrasa people are criticizing University people.
Non-religious, liberal, progressive people are criticizing religious
conservatives.
And the other way around.
And all that results in is shouting matches.
All that results in is arguments.
Talking past each other.
Not talking with each other.
There is no communication happening.
Right?
And we would expect, any of you, everyone
watching, all the doctors watching, you have also
criticized lawyers.
You have also criticized clerics.
You have criticized politicians.
And you would want each of those communities
to take your criticisms seriously and have an
internal conversation that there should be some reasonable
politicians, reasonable lawyers who take those conversations or
that criticism seriously and start doing something about
it from the inside as people of the
field.
Right?
And really look to address the issues as
best as they possibly can.
So why do you want that from our
side, we are not a cult.
Right?
If we have become doctors, have we become
a part of a cult that we have
to agree to everything.
Its evil is also good for us.
What is this nonsense?
Where does this thinking come from?
You have to endorse everything about it.
What are you, an idiot?
Maybe you don't have a brain of your
own.
This is how Hitler operated.
This is how cults operate.
This is how genocide takes place.
And this is group think.
Right?
This is the group mind.
The intellectual faculties, critical faculties, and moralities of
the group get completely displaced.
And the morality of the group, the intellectual
standards of the group, we just have to
maintain that.
We don't have to look beyond that.
Results tell us whatever we want.
Failures tell us whatever we want.
Evidence accumulates as much as we want.
Is that your scientific method that you base
your entire field on?
Is that, this was your criticism on quackery
in order to set the foundations of science
and of your pragmatic fields to move on
to begin with.
Now, on the avenues of knowledge and on
the institutions, whether it's a church or a
madrasa, this was your criticism as a historian
if you go into the history of your
university, of your being established as a science.
And now you have to do the same
things yourself.
It's absolutely incredible that we say stuff like
that.
In any case, moving right along, do pharma
companies use...
No, there's one more question before that.
Murtaza, you might want to leave and rejoin
right now because this is for you.
Has anyone died by taking excessive vitamin pills
till now?
So many people are after vitamins.
Where do they leave the vitamins?
What was she saying?
She wasn't saying anything.
Okay.
The vitamin company has sabotaged Murtaza's internet.
He's going to go and come back and
hopefully he'll be able to answer that question.
And that was probably the one aspect of
our campaign that wasn't received well at all.
I guess, meanwhile, yeah, Dr. Murtaza.
So the simple answer is yes.
Some people have died due to hypervitaminosis, which
is like the dangerous accumulation of vitamins, especially
vitamin D.
So the answer is yes, but I think
a lot of people misconstrued the purpose of
our vitamins post.
We weren't able to...
Your internet's battery is down.
You have to leave and come back.
He's saying don't take vitamins.
Okay, he's back.
Keep going.
We can hear you now.
We were basically saying that it is a
very lucrative business for Big Pharma.
It brings in like a major portion of
their profits and B, they are advertised as
these energy-giving power pills, which is factually
incorrect.
They have no calorific value while they do
have a physiological role, obviously, but you don't
get energy.
And Robocop is back.
Murtaza, we're going to have to ask you
to leave and come back.
So if I was to paraphrase what Murtaza
just said, our intent with that post was
not to tell people to stop taking vitamins
and die from taking vitamins because that's what
the question is assuming.
So we didn't say any of that.
We're telling you that this is a huge
part of the pharmaceutical industry's profits and that's
not what it is.
That's factually incorrect.
And moving on from there, yes, Murtaza?
The last point was that by all means,
if you have an indication, take vitamins as
prescribed.
But what happens is that you take a
lot of vitamins and you start absorbing
them.
Okay, we lost you again.
I had a conversation about it with Dr.
Murtaza, so if he doesn't mind, I can
take up here, just make things clear.
So we basically started this post mentioning that
there are genuine indications for vitamins.
There are some certain vitamin disorders where you
have serious deficit inside your body that you
can't cover just with food.
You take multivitamins because they provide those vitamins
and nutrients in high doses.
But everyone doesn't need them.
You have four of those medicines for your
own blood pressure, blood sugar, you
have a serious indication for it, genuine indication
for it, your doctor will tell you and
you take it.
But when it doesn't work and you think
that you are taking a healthy diet and
you don't have a genuine vitamin deficiency, there
you raise this question and discuss this with
your doctor.
So our purpose was to raise awareness of
taking multivitamins.
But if you are feeling a little low,
take multivitamins.
One of our ambassadors shared a very good
feedback about it.
Usually when someone comes from the west they
bring multivitamins in the form of gifts.
So you can see how common and prevalent
it is.
So this was the general intent behind it.
Normally all these vitamins and nutrients require a
good diet.
Normally our routine, our sleep habits, our lack
of physical activity contributes more towards laziness and
towards general unwellness as compared to taking vitamins
without correcting all those habits.
So this was our basic goal.
Not that multivitamins are causing death so stop
taking them.
One of the examples that I shared earlier
was that one of my patients went to
a neurologist and the neurologist gave him a
2-page list of medicines.
He was elderly and that patient was not
a doctor or a pharmacy student.
His field was very different.
He was a math student or whatever he
was.
He looked at all the medications and googled
15 of them.
The life-saving medication for his blood pressure
which prevented his father from having a stroke
and he could not distinguish that from vitamin
C.
He spent the entire day in the market
for one medicine which he could not find
anywhere and when he finally found it, it
was a box worth 5000 rupees.
It was a vitamin.
And we are talking through their daily wages
of the labor that they do.
Right?
We're talking about people not getting the life
-saving medications that they need to get because
they're frantically chasing after what they think might
be life-saving for them.
And out of those 5000, you can well
imagine how much is in the doctor's pocket.
The patient who's responsible for that?
You know, the wiggle of your pen.
What does that take the other person through
is what we want you to think about.
Right?
Please.
Yes, I just want to add.
So, as a nation, we have become so
accustomed to quick fixes.
Personally, I have come across two very close
people in my own family despite my counseling.
And they said alternate weeks with vitamin B12
injections.
So, please refrain from that.
This is just what I want to add.
And we think we know better.
This is not how it should be.
It's reflective of a condition.
We think there should be a pill for
everything.
Life is life.
It does not work that way.
And to be really honest, I have seen
people and that contains all those iron
calcium.
That's how it evolves.
So, it's something that we need to be
aware of.
Not completely discouraging.
It has a negative influence.
All the time she could have spent playing
with that child, which is way more important
than a multivitamin.
That didn't happen.
I mean, we have limited resources, right?
In terms of time and money.
We want to use them very wisely.
It's not a joke.
A lot of people need it.
A lot of people benefit from it.
By all means, if it's indicated, use it.
Use it.
Vitamins can be life-saving.
Vitamins can be disease-preventing.
You are pregnant.
You have to take folic acid.
You have to take it.
You have to take it for sure.
And we're not saying that you have to
go to a gynecologist and start fighting.
I don't want to take folic acid.
We're not saying that at all.
Vitamins are life-saving as well.
They are indicated in deficiencies for sure and
should be taken.
But that wasn't our point.
So, try not to misconstrue us if we
have offended you for very different reasons.
Anyways, moving right along.
Okay.
Do pharma companies use publicly-funded researches for
the development of privatized patented drugs?
I don't know.
Murtaza, Asma, can you help us out here?
Dr. Murtaza has done some research on it
but unfortunately he is not here.
Let's try again.
Can you say something?
Are you saying something?
We can't hear you.
Now we can.
Go ahead.
Okay.
So, the answer to this question is yes.
Public research has been used to privatize certain
drugs and add patents.
The most common the most recent example of
this is new anti-hepatitis C drugs.
So, drug companies have used public research and
this is there is a new debate going
on.
Half-life is over.
Aruj, if you can continue from there, please.
No, Dr. Murtaza, actually what we discussed is
that he told me that we don't have
much data available on it but the simple
answer is yes.
In some cases, especially, mentioned BKI in case
of new hepatitis C anti-hepatitis C drugs
that has been happened and they noticed it
and I guess they were trying to take
some action on it as well.
But I guess this is this didn't come
up in our research when we were doing
that.
So, if we really need to give an
answer for it, we can do a background
research on it and we can share it
later on.
But the simple answer is yes, it has
been happening and recently a few reports, a
few drugs were reported to be patented like
that.
Okay.
Fair.
Moving right along.
A common thread that has been going on
since the beginning of this campaign although we
tried to tell you as well but still
we have been accused that you have been
criticizing and telling about the problems and how
layered the problems are and how complicated and
complex they are and how far they have
spread.
You are telling all of that but you
did not light for your part.
You are cursing the darkness.
So, what is the solution?
Yes.
What do we say to that?
There are a lot of solutions but unfortunately
all of them fail.
So, this was a very common theme.
Whenever we had a session or a post
or feedback there was this common question.
Where is the solution for it?
We have been a part of this for
long.
We have seen these things but you are
not highlighting So, first of all I guess
I will give a clear answer to this.
Before that just to let everyone know when
we were researching all of these problems we
tried to find solutions to make our presentations
a little optimistic.
We don't want to disappoint everyone.
But each of those solutions was a dead
end.
We used to research how much effective it
was but unfortunately each of them failed at
some point.
Why?
Because this was the mindset to go rapidly
towards Like I said when we did not
research we did not know that this problem
is so much complicated.
The spider web is so deep and so
complicated.
So obviously all the solutions were like blaming
one organization or doctors or pharmaceutical companies or
government and some policies were applied there which
failed unfortunately.
So the basic reason for was that we
are towards solutions and we are not trying
to understand this problem.
As a doctor it is shooting and it
is a really big problem and I am
not trying to understand this problem.
There might be a lot of underlying factors.
And I just see that blood pressure and
I treat him for that.
Maybe I will kill him.
That's now how we solve the problem.
So that's the attitude that we show here
and in the past we showed here that
how complicated
this problem is.
How complicated this problem is.
How complicated this problem is.
How complicated this problem is.
How complicated this problem is.
How complicated this How complicated this problem is.
How complicated this problem is.
How complicated this problem How complicated this problem
is.
Okay.
Great.
Let's build on that.
But before Before we do that, Asma Murtaza,
do you have anything to add in terms
of what the solution may be, can be?
Why didn't we give a solution?
Sir, do you know about hurdle race?
No.
Hurdle race is just a type of race
where in a marathon, after 150 meters, the
obstacle gets bigger.
This is the exact reason why everyone should
be clearly aware of the whole extent of
the problem.
If you don't know how to solve a
problem, you won't be able to find a
solution to the problem.
You won't be able to find a cohesive
solution that targets everything.
If you only talk about basic levels like
polypharmacy and incentives, then if a doctor doesn't
prescribe a medicine to a patient, he will
say that you don't need this.
This has happened.
Even in my house job, there was a
time when I told a patient not to
get an X-ray of their There was
no fracture.
They went and they got it.
If we want to educate a patient, we
can't do it.
Similarly, if you are in an emergency, you
can't do it.