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October 2000 JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED: SOME INFORMATION FOR YOU An unusual medical-consumer library in Mumbai, India - the Health Education Library for People - provides valuable information on medical issues to everyone. Among its aims: to educate the layman on medical issues, to promote healthy doctor-patient relationships, to help writers and journalists improve the quality and accuracy of their reporting on medical topics. By Frederick Noronha Third World Network Features Does diabetes plague someone in your family? Having a problem with fitness, exercise or nutrition during pregnancy? Want access to support groups, or worried grey about what you can do to help your child with disability? Rather than lengthy prescriptions for various ills, an unusual service in the Indian city of Mumbai advocates that the best prescription for the patient is knowledge! It strongly makes out a case that the best patient is a well-informed one. Even from a doctor’s point of view. HELP (The Health Education Library for People), located in the Indian city of Mumbai, is the largest medical-consumer library in the world, says UNESCO [the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation]. It is packed with information, and its shelves have huge quantities of books. Each day, it draws both general and specialised visitors. ‘People often feel that medical issues are too esoteric. We’re trying to overcome that. The idea is to educate them so they don’t get misled or misguided. Patients shouldn’t be treated as guinea pigs or taken advantage of just because they’re not very well versed with medical knowledge,’ says the lady doctor who guided this journalist round the centre during a recent visit. ‘In order to encourage the rational use of drugs, rather than focus only on medical practitioners, I feel we need to concentrate on patients as well,’ adds HELP founder Dr Aniruddha Malpani. This, notes Malpani, makes sense. Patients themselves have the ‘most to lose’ if drugs are taken unwisely by them. ‘We have access to information on every health and medical topic under the sun, explained in terms that the lay person can understand,’ says Dr Malpani confidently. HELP is run by a non-profit trust. Currently, it has 50 CD-Roms, 500 video cassettes, 7,000 books and pamphlets, kits, newsletters and journals. All are free of medical jargon and are focused on the consumer. ‘There’s not a single book from the medical curriculum,’ says Dr Hufrisha Suraliwala, a dentist and the Medical Information Manager. ‘It’s a consumer library, meant to provide information to the layman. Doctors can easily find their own information, but this often proves to be very difficult for the average person.’ ‘We are a public library. Everyone is welcome. Entry is free,’ is the motto of HELP. Institutional members have to pay though. Those unable to come personally can also send in queries via the post or email and many do, says Dr Suraliwala. They can rely on something quaintly acronymed MISS-HELP (Medical Information Search Services for HELP). In keeping with the cyberage, HELP’s Internet link even provides information on the latest medical research from all over the globe. HELP has become a prototype of the modern digital library, too. Its web site <http://www.healthlibrary.com> has the full text of many health books and magazines. Visitors can browse through them for free. Each month the site receives some 60,000 visitors (500,000 hits), says HELP. ‘This lets us extend our outreach services by providing consumer health information to Internet users from all over the world,’ adds Dr Malpani proudly. This initiative was launched by Drs Aniruddha and Anjali Malpani, famous fertility specialists. They found that patients abroad were well aware of medical issues, as against the ignorance reigning here. The centre’s visitors currently include a lot of lay people, journalists, researchers, medical students and interns, housewives, senior citizens and even some doctors of repute. Information doesn’t come only from the world of allopathy. Other curative means of medicine are also used - including homeopathy, ayurveda, music therapy, the now-growing-in-popularity Reiki, Taichi, Yoga, massage therapy, aromatherapy, Unani, Acupressure, Acupuncture, and even something as exotic as tickle-therapy. There’s even information from the world of nutrition, dietetics, medical resources, sports medicine, spiritual healing, and mind-body medicine. On each first and third Saturday, lectures of medical importance are held at the library. HELP’s aim is to promote healthy doctor-patient relationships by informing the patient better. It says it also wants to prove to be a useful resource for writers and journalists, as this could improve the quality and accuracy of reporting on medical topics by the mainstream media. In addition, it hopes that over time it could act as a stimulus for patients with a particular disease to get together, form self-help groups, and help each other cope with their diseases. More knowledge could also prevent medical fraud and quackery. ‘Ultimately we hope that well-informed patients will demand the best treatment available, and this will act as an incentive for doctors to update their skills and for hospitals to improve their facilities,’ adds Dr Malpani. The air-conditioned reading room can seat up to 25. Computerised information allows for speedy searches for pinpointing information needed. Photocopying is charged at Rs1 per page, reasonable by local standards. HELP also has access to specialised foreign medical databases like MEDLINE, Cancerlit, AIDSLINE and HealthStar to answer queries. Once a query is sent in, the confidential reply comes on about 50-100 pages or on floppy in seven days, by registered post. Of course, this is not meant to be a substitute for the doctor! ‘People in India often don’t bother to take a second or third opinion on even major health issues. They take everything lying down, and don’t bother to research their condition,’ says Dr Suraliwala. HELP is also trying to get doctors to ‘prescribe information’. It has printed Information Prescription pads, which are freely distributed to doctors on request. Instead of just giving a list of medicines, the doctor could suggest to the patient what he or she needs to know about the disease or ailment. Doctors can thus indirectly educate their patients with a Prescription for Information. Doctors then need to discuss the results of this information search with their patients, and to guide the patients in locating information relevant to their particular problems. There is perhaps no better way of getting information to the patient, believes this centre. Doctors and patients thus become partners in making medical decisions. - Third World Network Features · About the writer: Frederick Noronha is a Goa-based journalist. HELP - Health Education Library for People - can be contacted via telephone (022) 368 3334 or 368 1014. Fax 91.22.2150223. Email: helplib@giasbm01.vsnl.net.in or helplib@bigfoot.com and via the Internet http://www.healthlibrary.com
2100/2000
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