In the previous articles I tried expose the facts I came to know of in the course of my profession. This article tries to expose the politico-corporate-foreign money nexus, a classic example of which is IIHPL (Indira IVF private limited) in front of us.
IVF (in vitro fertilisation) also known as “test tube baby” in common language is a medical treatment for many people who have hurdles to become parent(s).
IVF was invented by Dr Patrick Steptoe and Dr Robert Edwards (Nobel awarded for the same) in 1978 following which there was a phase of long drawn scientific battle to improve the technology to the present state of a decent success rate.
This is quite contrary to the claim made by IIHPL (which claims to have discovered IVF in its own way) this is same as a Babas (godmen) discovering the medicines for Covid -19 illness, no prizes for discovering photos of IIHPL founder along with the Baba.
IVF is believed to have come to India in its own controversial way. Some say the first IVF baby was created in Kolkata, some say it was in Mumbai, but I would say it is reasonable to believe that the first baby may be someone who may have been treated outside the country and then come here to be delivered.
At present the situation is that, infertility (inability to conceive or become pregnant) could no more be ignored in the garb of rising population, at least for the educated and the salaried class of people.
Most of the IVF clinics serving this segment of people are seen mushrooming in the urban and metropolitan centres, but to the contrary the national family health survey shows that the highest rate of infertility is amongst the tribes that inhabit remote places far away from the urban populated centres.
On the one side government has imposed compulsory rural service for people who graduate from the medical schools but on the other end doesn’t hesitate to pass laws to regulate the technology in the medical fields with utter disregard to the facts about where the technologies are concentrated or should be in place or who are entitled to the treatment.
Moreover, most of the students who are post graduate in Gynecology (the field in which infertility and IVF is a subject ) in the country have no exposure whatsoever in the advancing fields like that of IVF because the regulatory body doesn’t bother to check if such infrastructure is in place in the OBG (obstetrics and gyneacology) department of such medical colleges.
As a result most of the OBG specialists who wish to learn IVF enrol themselves into unstructured unrecognised heterogeneous training courses (ranging between a week to few months inside and outside country) offered by many institutes and non institutes across the country and globe and get into the practice of IVF.
Exploiting the fact that there is lack of proper infrastructure to train gynecologists for IVF in the medical colleges from which they nevertheless post-graduate, unscrupulous agencies like IIHPL offer them training at Udaipur in Rajasthan for anywhere between a week and two months as part of the deal of signing an agreement of five years of bondage at the end of such an unrecognized unstructured training module.
During the training of gynecologists coming from all over the country at IIHPL Udaipur Rajasthan, they are expected not be surprised when they see the brazen influence of politicians who are part of the counseling process for patients.
For example taking the name of Mr CP Joshi is compulsory while running the PPT presentation about infertility to the patients in IIHPL headquarters. Only a curious student would doubt the credibility of such training modules and no wonder it has been going on since a long time in IIHPL that too unquestioned.
After counselling and educating the patients with a courteous sly cunning mention of politician CP Joshi’s name both counselling and countrywide campaign for the politician is achieved in a single shot.
Nowhere else in the world the political campaign money would have overflowed so much in excess as to get in between a patient and a doctor, as with the pamphlets which are distributed to the patients who come in hordes, any educated person in science can know that its all trash, random thoughts accumulated from dubious practices from past which has no value in the present. The flyers have no value except to further attract the gullible patients towards further hope to somehow conceive.
Mr CP Joshi and the family of cronies who run IIHPL seem to have very surprising similarities and obvious associations when we just fact check their credentials, Mr Ajay Murdia (founder of IIHPL) is supposed to have a CPS degree (recognised only in few places) in Pathology but seems more interested in gynecology and IVF instead of processing samples in a lab.
This goes back to the 1980s when he has filed a lawsuit against a Chennai company for not arranging a training module for him (to use an ultrasound machine imported from US) which according to him was a violation of the initial contract.
On similar lines Mr CP Joshi has a UG degree in Law but a PG in Physics and a PhD in psychology and also becomes a professor in a university. But in Rajasthan they call him professor saab and he has also filed a suit against administration (for arrangement of recounting) after losing by an incredible one vote in an election. (People say he and his wife didn’t caste vote in the same)
Just as even a beggar on the street would consolidate his position if he was consistent in his efforts. CP Joshi is seen a consolidator in the political arena of his party by the very virtue of his surname and caste which he doesn’t seem hesitating to boast off, and then falling to the extent of begging an apology from the party chief and then continuing to remain in a key position.
Similarly when gynaecologists get an introduction to IIHPL at Udaipur, they are shown a family tree of surnames related to the Murdias who run the company as a family business like no one’s business including Dr Patrick Steptoe and Dr Robert Edwards or Bourn Hall clinic who invented it.
Likewise, CP Joshi runs the Congress (he has become the speaker) in Rajasthan like no one’s business including Allan Octavian Hume who founded it.
Every politician has his media mouth now a days. Similarly one particular news portal called Rajasthan Patrika seems to be specially favouring to Mr C P Joshi and the gynaecologists are expected to be not curious at the fact that Rajasthan Patrika also prints the unethical undercutting ads of Rs 80,000 per cycle of IVF offered at IIHPL.
Most politicians in the country eye a certain secret nexus with the corporate or the bureaucracy as to be financially viable to decimate smaller competitors who keep rising up nevertheless, because its after all a beggar’s talent of consistency which needs no special qualities to be groomed up in politics.
Similarly a gynaecologist is supposed to be not surprised at the fact that IIHPL has a secret deal with one TA associates of Boston US, details of the deal in 2019 were not disclosed as per a news portal in economics.
Even before Mr CP Joshi wins in his constituency he declares in a gathering that no one knows the religion of Hindus better than his own caste—Bramhins. People born in other caste both inside and outside his party are not supposed to be authorities in the field. These utterances prove that all education in social studies, physics and psychology are either dubious or have no role in making a person educated in this country.
Similarly top management people in IIHPL would be heard telling doctors under them in all over the country on WhatsApp that only they know IVF better than anyone (including textbooks) so their protocols are the best not to mention the protocols of cheating the employees of lakhs of rupees.
Continuing the surprising similarities between Mr CP Joshi and IIHPL, just like any politician can play the brinkmanship act very consistently, CP Joshi and his party government has become unstable in the Rajasthan assembly.
A gynaecologist in IIHPL is expected not to be surprised when IIHPL declare losses and hence suffer pay cuts and layoffs (with pretexts like pandemic) whereas the actual problems are quarrels between the top management members (always at the same times as elections/party crises of Mr CP Joshi).
All the political parties including that of Mr C P Joshi’s have no obligation to disclose their fundings from foreign sources from a retrospective date. IIHPL also has no obligation to declare the details of deals with foreign companies/agents, so the doctors joining IIHPL are directed to send investigations of samples with genetic material of patients all over India only to a specific foreign company.
As doctors are gullible people and more so doctors from lower socio-economic strata, many of whom express the emotion “by mistake have become doctors” without much family backings depend on corporate, government and private investment (which is less or nil in non urban India) to find an employment.
Unlike many of their own rich family classmates who either manage to migrate to US or UK, or just manage their existing set ups without much “struggle”.
Such doctors are not supposed to be surprised when the owner of IIHPL says he has no obligation to tell the reason why he wants to expel someone or keep someone in the organisation. As is with Mr C P Joshi’s party which whimsically and farcically expels and also receives back people.
There are foreign companies which pay people like me at the rate of 100 dollars per hour to know the intricacies of various IVF clinics in the country before they could advise their investors to keep or withdraw money (Flight of capital phenomena) from a specific IVF clinic.
They also could be arranging a sufficient part of such foreign investments into making sure companies other than the ones into which their money has gone (competitors) are decimated, otherwise why would a foreign investor be interested or be sympathetic toward a tribal who suffers infertility in this country?
Without suspecting these serendipitous association of Mr C P Joshi and IIHPL, gynaecologists are expected to be not surprised and curious that so many smaller city IVF clinics have shut shop and others are just conniving with the happy ride of IIHPL of monopolising IVF field in the country, as people are not worried about the democratic or federal structure of the country.
The decimation of investment in non urban places and lack of care in such places doesn’t matter even after the pandemic exposes these glaring deficiencies, because lockdown ensures the secret unaccounted deaths of people sufficiently enough, and very much sadly so.
And just like the prominent media rarely bothers about the peripheries of this country and in fact blacks out the news from there for other TRP producing news. It wouldn’t be surprising to know that Mr CP Joshi also blocked all small news agencies from reporting from inside the Assembly of Rajasthan, and following him as if his own clone Mr Kshitiz Murdia asks people in his organisation to shut up and force-resign or else get terminated on charges of ‘gross misconduct’ pending investigation.
What could have been a healthy trend of investment in the periphery in healthcare including IVF has now been made unviable.
This has been cleverly subverted for the sake of some specific political classes who at the end of the day, even if claim to have functioned as a healthcare provider, may have destroyed the possibility of healthcare for the peripheral populations.
They also served the purpose of harming the federal structure of the country by unnecessarily controlling the IVF clinics all over the country from one centre with handful of cronies.
Alternatively service of IVF by a standalone centre in a remote place without external administrative control would have functioned equally well without compromising the standards, as proven by many studies of doctors in remote African IVF centers.
What might miss the common observer is such a centralization of power in health is not only harmful to patients but also clever manipulation of the accounts. People in the organization may be serving other purposes kept secret by the top until one realises that there have been unethical trials going on in the pretext of the largest chain of IVF clinics in the country.
Hoping that there may be some course correction to make healthcare accessible and affordable to all without compromise in quality and also at the same time not harm the constitutional principles of our country, I have made an earnest effort in that direction in the form of this article.