Holi
The Holi festival commemorates the victory of good over evil, brought about by the burning and destruction of the demoness named Holika. This was enabled through unwavering devotion to the Hindu god of preservation, Lord Vishnu
Holi got its name as the "Festival of Colors" from Lord Krishna, a reincarnation of Lord Vishnu, who liked to play pranks on the village girls by drenching them in water and colors.
The festival marks the end of winter and the abundance of the upcoming spring harvest season.
Yugal Kishore Upadhyay
9811372779
IVF Cost in India
Well-known infertility Coordinator
of India Sh. Yugal Kishore
Upadhyay and IVF expert Dr Firuza Parikh recalls the story of one of their
patients, Benudevi, who came to her a few years ago for IVF. "She and her
husband Shomnath hailed from interior Vidarbha.
They had travelled for a gruelling 90 hours by road and rail to reach Mumbai. They had no place to stay and just enough money for two meals a day. But a determined Benudevi told me: "This is the journey of our lives. Two of us came to Bombay but we will not leave till we go back as three."
A generous Parsi couple funded her treatment. Soon after, Benudevi conceived and gave birth to twins.
Sh. Upadhyay told that Infertility treatments are extremely expensive-private clinics charge about Rs 2-3 lakh — and clearly unaffordable for poor couples. Very few government hospitals offer free or subsidized fertility treatments. "Only six to seven government hospitals have infertility clinics. In contrast, the number of people dealing with infertility is huge and growing.
They had travelled for a gruelling 90 hours by road and rail to reach Mumbai. They had no place to stay and just enough money for two meals a day. But a determined Benudevi told me: "This is the journey of our lives. Two of us came to Bombay but we will not leave till we go back as three."
A generous Parsi couple funded her treatment. Soon after, Benudevi conceived and gave birth to twins.
Sh. Upadhyay told that Infertility treatments are extremely expensive-private clinics charge about Rs 2-3 lakh — and clearly unaffordable for poor couples. Very few government hospitals offer free or subsidized fertility treatments. "Only six to seven government hospitals have infertility clinics. In contrast, the number of people dealing with infertility is huge and growing.
Around 15% of Indian couples in their reproductive phase are infertile. And contrary to popular belief, quite a few of these come from poorer homes. Prasad says her clinic gets close to 100 patients every week, and about 60% are from poor backgrounds.
In a study, the International Institute of Population Sciences in Mumbai noted that "more non-literate women were childless than literate women in both rural and urban areas" in the 20-year period from 1981 to 2001. Lack of literacy here can be seen as a marker of poverty.
"Childlessness is also a bigger stigma for them," says Dr Neena Malhotra, a professor at AIIMS' Assisted Reproductive Techniques (ART) Centre. At her weekly OPD, Malhotra says that she sees a sizeable number of auto-rickshaw drivers, vegetable vendors and factory workers who want to undergo infertility treatment. "Often many of them sell their assets and land to foot the bill," says Malhotra.
In India, IVF is not covered by insurance and the cost of even subsidized fertility treatments is daunting, with no guarantee of success. At AIIMS, the cost of an IVF cycle is Rs 60,000 and the success rate 30-35%. At the government-run Sri Avittom Thirunal hospital in Thiruvananthapuram, the cost varies between Rs 60,000 and Rs 1 lakh. The MAMC clinic charges Rs 17,000 for the first IVF cycle and has a success rate of 40%, says Prasad, who is also the secretary general of Indian Fertility Society.
Dr Durga Rao, an infertility specialist based in Hyderabad, recalls the story of a couple socially ostracized and forced to leave their village because they were childless even after 10 years of marriage."The wife was forced to take medicines and treatments given by the local quack and the husband was pressurized to divorce her and remarry.
Eventually they came to Hyderabad where the wife started working as a house help and the husband worked on a construction site," says Rao. Moved by their troubles, Rao launched a scheme this month, called Amulya, under which her clinic will provide 12 free IVF cycles a year to disadvantaged couples.
Fertility treatment is obviously not a priority for the resource-strapped government health sector which would rather prioritize maternal and child health. At present India spends a mere 1% of its GDP on public health, compared to 3% in China and 8.3% in the US. "Besides, these hospitals have been focussing on reducing the population and helping infertile couples seems to be at variance with their policies and priorities,'' says Parikh.
But fertility experts say that the government needs to pay attention to this issue as well. "The annual health budget should include funds for IVF," says Upadhyay . "The government could reduce duty on equipment and disposables," suggests Parikh. She and Dr Anirudh Malpani, an IVF specialist in Mumbai, believe that cost optimization and development of indigenous protocols is also possible.
"We need to take quality IVF to the bottom of the pyramid with dignity," says Malpani.
How other countries deliver on fertility
In the UK, NHS rules state that couples with a defined cause of infertility should be referred for three rounds of IVF straightaway. Three rounds should also be offered to all women under the age of 40 with "unexplained infertility", as long as they've been having "regular unprotected intercourse" for two years, and one round offered to most women aged 40-42.
But, NHS funding for IVF varies according to where you live — and what has emerged is a postcode lottery.
Although 15 US states require insurers to provide some degree of infertility coverage or offer the option of coverage to those buying plans, many of those mandates impose restrictions on who can qualify.
Israel's infertility model was considered the best -the government provided unlimited highly subsidized IVF cycles to a woman up to the age of 45 but now it's been limited to eight statefunded cycles.
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