Yesterday I was talking to a boy - a
trainee in the company I work for - about his goal in life. He was more than
happy to tell me that he was attending a coaching institute where they prepare
students to face one of the countless MBA entrance exams. I am a journalist not
an MBA and therefore I asked him whether it was necessary for someone to obtain
a Business Management qualification. He gave me a perplexed glance, raised his
eyebrows and replied in an accentuating manner, “Of course, it is.”
“Everyone is going for an MBA. Why? Because it guarantees you
a good job with a fat paycheque,” he said in an excited way. The conversation
then proceeded to other things.
Just a few days back I read in a regional newspaper about a
boy in a small town who fell from a tree seriously injuring his liver. The report
said that he was bleeding profusely and was taken to a nearby medical center.
His family was mulling over the possibility of taking him to a top hospital in
the city. The problem was that the distance to the hospital in the city was of
a good measure and the doctor treating the boy in the local medical center knew
that he may not survive the distance. Therefore, this doctor took it upon
himself to save the boy’s life. According to reports, his treatment kept the
boy alive and fit enough for shifting to the hospital in the city. The boy
survived.
Imagine the fate of the boy had that doctor opted for a
career in Business Management early in his life. Frankly speaking, India needs
more doctors than MBAs.
According to various reports, India has approximately
6,00,000 doctors. Data available with the World Health Organisation puts that
figure to 6,60,801 as in 2005. India has a population of over a billion. In
approximate figures that translates to 1 doctor per 1,800 people. Countries like Brazil and Thailand are better
off with a ratio of 1:844 and 1:500 respectively. No need to think of Germany
which has a ratio of 1:296.
Worse is the fact that a majority of doctors or, in other
words, the medical facilities are concentrated in urban areas of the country.
There are many areas in rural India where there is a serious dearth of proper
medical services. Those areas are dominated by quacks (unqualified people
posing as doctors) and/or practitioners of Ayurveda, Unani, Homeopathy or
Siddha. The later ones provide basic medical treatment but cannot operate on a
person in the case, say for example, of the boy I wrote about above.
Even in the urban areas, the government run hospitals are few
and far between. Add to it the pathetic conditions of many of them and you have
the perfect threat to the dream of a developed India. Most of the hospitals are
privately run, a majority of which charge a fees that may put an average
Bollywood actor to shame. There is no need to discuss the government as every
Indian is aware of how it functions.
Talking about government, India’s closest competitor is way
ahead. China had 19, 05,436 registered medical practitioners for its population
as in 2009 according to the WHO. Yes, China presently holds the distinction of
being the most populated country in the world but India will soon surpass it.
Consider then the situation here.
We are in dire need of more doctors. We also need to stop the
tendency of medical practitioners to leave for foreign shores. According to a
report, there are nearly 60,000 Indian doctors in countries like US, UK,
Australia and Canada alone.
Interest in a career in medicine must be increased. Better
opportunities should be created in India itself for the doctors to stay back. More
colleges are needed without compensating on the quality of education. Medical
research must be given a boost.
The Medical Council of India lists 335 medical colleges
imparting education in India. Compare this to the 1600 odd MBA colleges and you
know where the country is heading.
Doing good business can never become the parameter of gauging
a country’s overall development status. Of all the countless number of MBA
graduates that we produce in India, 60 percent are fools, 30 percent know how
to fool others and only 10 percent are the real MBAs.
Nearly every Sales Executive whether in a retail store or at
your door is an MBA from an institution which may be operating out of a rented
apartment. There are many MBAs who were unable to even pass their school exams
properly, if you know what I mean. Barring those who pass from the elite IIMS
or a handful of other equally competent colleges, nearly all of them are
aimless people. In other words, since they were not good in any other
discipline, they chose MBA for the simple reason because it is easy to pass if
it is not from the IIMs or the other competent ones. They are the fools.
Some go for an MBA with dreams of becoming as ‘wealthy’ as
Tata or Birla. Nobody wants to ‘be’ a Tata or Birla. They fail to see the
hardships these legends of business faced to build their empires where it
stands today. Such MBAs always try to take the shortcut to earning more money.
They will never back down from fooling a gullible person into buying something
which he/she may not need at all. They are those who fool others.
Over the last few years some innovative minds have come out
with new business models that are essential for economic as well as social
development. They face political, financial or other problems but continue
doing their work. These are the real MBAs. They have the potential to give a
positive direction to a business and society equally. Interestingly, many of
them do not have an MBA qualification at all.
If the government continues to allow opening of MBA
institutions on the premise of making India a developed nation, it will have
disastrous consequences in the long run. The people of India need more doctors
and medical researchers to counter the ever rising cases of unknown diseases.
The Japanese Encephalitis is one such example where lack of proper medical facilities
claimed more than 800 lives. The government should stop boasting about Medical
Tourism if it cannot protect its own people on the ground.
By 2031 there will be a shortfall of close to a million
doctors. According to the planning commission, India is short of six lakh
doctors, a million nurses and almost two lakh dentists. What will India do with
the money if the people do not live to enjoy the wealth?
It is the duty of the government to take concrete measures in
protecting the people of the country. More needs to be spent on health,
especially public sector. According to reports, of the 5.1 percent of the GDP
spent on health an approximate 17 percent only is spent on the public sector.
Improving the economy
is good but it should not come at the cost of lives. Bundles of money and
batches of MBAs could not have been able to achieve what that doctor did in the
small town. After all, saving a life is incalculably valuable than a billion
dollar business plan.