Raising awareness about significant issues confronting Indian healthcare

Dear readers,
Over the past seven decades, we have witnessed path-breaking changes in terms of innovation, research and development in the medical field. With seminal contribution to the furtherance of medical science, Indian doctors and medical experts have made their country proud in the eyes of the world.
On such a positive note, we take pride in raising awareness about significant issues confronting Indian healthcare by means of producing a wide range of interesting, in-depth and analytical stories encompassing the latest trends and advancements in medical science. We hope you would appreciate our humble efforts, like every month, after reading the current February,2018 of your magazine Double Helical which carries a comprehensive package – enriched with analysis and expert viewpoints – an approach to cure many incurable diseases by holistic medicine.
As a part of cover story entitled “Mission Total Wellness” we highlight Dr R K Tuli’s view on present trends of Holistic Medicine and its acceptance across India. According to him, all wise people think, talk and wish to adopt Holistic Medicare for their Health!!Days of exclusive dependence on allopathic medicine are over! “Holistic MediCARE is an all-inclusive integrated ‘synergy’ of natural, drug-free, harmless, but highly efficient modalities of Western, Indian, Chinese & New-Age systems of Medicine for care of each human being as a whole, body-mind-spirit.”
It is being increasingly recognized world over that it would never be possible to meet all the health expectations of the humanity with the exclusive allopath based conventional model of healthcare. The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) recommends and our National Health Policy has promulgated integration of all the recognized systems of medicine. According to official statistics, in spite of all the technological advances and availability of world class medical care in our country over the last three decades, the incidence of all common diseases whether Diabetes, Hypertension, Coronary Artery Disease, Cancers, Autoimmune Disorders, Respiratory Diseases or Psychosomatic Disorders has increased 3-4 times more in the last thirty years.
Therefore, the healthcare services in the country have to grow beyond inherent limitations of the so called evidence based modern technology. An ever increasing number of people wish to explore benefits of time honoured traditional, or alternate systems of health which are natural, drug-free, harmless, highly reproducible, having helped the humanity and survived over thousands of years.
The good news is that we, now, have very rich expertise available to complement the best of drug-based specialities of medicine with various non-conflicting drug-free modalities of recognized systems of health to ‘Eliminate all Sickness’ from its root cause and restore Positive Health and Total Wellness ‘Body, Mind & Spirit.’
It is a board certified specialty in the U.S. for nearly two decades, and is catching up very fast amongst the developed nations. Therefore, it’s high time that we adopt it into our health care and make our living years happy and productive.
This approach to health matches up to our Vedic concept that health is the greatest wealth, and we need health whether to achieve personal, financial or spiritual growth, and even moksha. It is guided by the ancient CharakaSamhita which states that life is the combination of the body, the senses, the mind and the ‘atma’; they cannot separated from each other, from this Integration ensues ‘ayush’.
Another special story entitled “Womb on Rent” describes how over the years, the process of using a surrogate mother has become a way for parents to have a child by using a third party to carry the child until birth.
One of the key issues is the surrogacy procedure itself. While the process makes it possible for parents to have a child that possesses genes from one or both “biological” parents, it can also put in motion many emotional and psychological ups and downs for the intended parents.
In addition, even if both parents of the child are on board with using a surrogate mother, there are instances where it may be difficult to family members that this is the right choice. Therefore, it is essential to take the time to thoroughly think through the entire surrogacy process and to consider all of the pertinent factors before moving forward.
The process of choosing who will act as the surrogate mother can also bring up some controversy. In some cases, the biological parents may opt to use a friend or relative for this role. This, however, could cause some potentially negative issues down the road if not handled correctly medically, emotionally, and legally.
The biggest advantage to the surrogacy process has the potential to outweigh any of the disadvantages in that regardless of the time, cost, and other factors that are involved, a loving parent or parents will soon have a child to love.

What is Surrogacy?
Surrogacy is the practice where another woman carries and gives birth to a baby for a couple who want to have a child. It might become necessary in case of absence or malformation of the womb of the lady, recurrent pregnancy loss, or repeated in vitro fertilization (IVF) implantation failures.
But it does not allow surrogacy to the people like homosexual couples, single parents, couples in live-in relationships, foreigners and couples with children ( biological or otherwise). The cheap availability of labour coupled with high international demand has fuelled the growth of this industry. However, there was no legislative backing to surrogacy and the legal aspects over it seemed to be rather unclear, unsettled and vague.
Surrogate mothers receive medical, nutritional and overall health care through surrogacy agreements. There are many more stories.
We hope you will enjoy reading the current issue!
Warm regards,
Amresh K Tiwary,
Editor-in-Chief