Introspection needed in the media

attention is paid to these two things that we seem never to get to the issues that really affect ordinary people like healthcare, education, pollution and the horrendous conditions in which most Indians are forced to live.

Since I have in the past few weeks been dealing with a medical emergency at home I shall start with healthcare. I have been in and out of the best hospitals in Mumbai recently and have been distressed to find that at the top of our healthcare pyramid there is such a shortage of doctors that they have little more than a few minutes to spend with patients. They whizz in and whizz off to the next patient not because of carelessness but because they really have only so much time. I happen to have some experience of hospitals in Switzerland and the contrast between doctors there and here shocked me. If this is the state of our finest private hospitals what must be happening in government hospitals?

Why is there such a shortage of doctors? Have too many fled to countries that pay better? Are there too few medical colleges?