Towards Health for All:Cost-Effective and Innovative Treatment of Diabetes Shows the Pathway

Abstract

While the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) has been developing and refining ecofriendly and socially inclusive strategies to achieve a 'zero hunger' India, the 'Voluntary Health Service' (VHS) in the neighbourhood of MSSRF has been focusing on providing quality health care to patients who are too poor to get medical treatment as those with adequate means. On the food front, it is remarkable that India has implemented the 'Right to Food Act 2012' with homegrown food through scientific endeavours and accomplishments. The situation with health care and medical treatment is quite different with the drugs developed by multinational companies, their undesirable side-effects as well as their cost beyond the means of millions of Indians. Under these circumstances, particularly with regard to the treatment and management of both type-1 and type-2 diabetes, the TAG-VHS Chennai, has already made remarkable progress. Towards the goal of successful treatment and sustainable management of diabetes, the TAG-VHS has introduced cost-effective integrative system of medicines (ayurveda, dynamic acupuncture mediated metaphysical energy-healing therapies and limited use of relatively safer allopathic drugs). The validation of the effectiveness of various combinations and modalities of the systems of medicine is based on the 'treatment outcome' without adverse side effects. The limitations of randomized clinical trials are discussed with examples and scientific references. Even though TAG-VHS employs cost-effective treatment schedules, there is still the need for necessary financial base. In order to create this financial support base, it has also innovated a scheme called the 'Grand Health Ensurance' (GHE) that is a revolutionary, completely transparent and inclusive health ensuring model where the affordable persons pay 1% of their total income per annum which automatically covers Health Ensurance of 1-2 persons for 1 year. This paper discusses how the cost-effective, harmful sideeffects-free integrative systems of medicine coupled with GHE would provide a sustainable path to achieve the goal of 'health for all'.