Sick Business: The Truth Behind Healthcare in India by Dr Sumanth C Raman

presents

a gripping exposé of the murky underbelly of the Indian healthcare system by Dr Sumanth C Raman

Sick Business: The Truth Behind Healthcare in India

Living in these precarious times, majority of us face health-related challenges on a regular basis and it makes one wonder how further can we lean into our existing healthcare systems and providers when unwell? While there is no easy answer to this question, there is, however, a step towards finding the truth, and that is to be equipped with more information and insights into this critically important system. Here comes in Dr Sumanth C Raman’s Sick Business – a bold and brave book by an expert with an insider’s vantage point who takes a deep, hard look into the murky underbelly of the Indian healthcare system to reveal its inner workings, thereby becoming a compulsory, handy guide enabling one to ask the right questions and make informed decisions when one’s health is concerned. Sick Business is now available on preorder.

Dr Sumanth C Raman says, ‘This book had to be written so that people know the truth about the healthcare system that concerns each and everyone of us. Those who read the book will be able to ask the difficult questions that will ensure better healthcare for us and future generations.’

Bushra Ahmed, Senior Commissioning Editor – HarperCollins India, says, ‘This is such an important book for our times. All of us have so many questions regarding our health, doctors we see, the hospitals we go to, the medicines we take; and this book will be your guide. From an expert who has closely seen the healthcare industry over decades, Sick Business will leave you with much-needed answers, and some important questions.’

About Sick Business 

95 per cent of healthcare facilities have less than five workers

80 per cent of cholesterol patients are over-diagnosed

9,00,000 of C-sections are preventable

7.04 lakh children under five die of pneumonia and diarrhea every year

For Dr Sumanth C Raman, the numbers don’t lie. Decades of having a ring-side view of the inner workings of India’s healthcare system have given him ample reason to question, ponder, and challenge it.

In Sick Business, through first-hand accounts of patients, interviews with doctors and other healthcare professionals, and scouring through reports and research, Dr Raman unveils a chilling portrait, a healthcare system veiled in shadows.

Vested interests, shady research, lax State intent, questionable ethics, and general disarray, the questions don’t stop – how to alleviate our overburdened public hospitals? At what cost does the opulence of ubiquitous private hospitals come at? Is India facing a silent epidemic of surgeries? Why is there a rampant culture of underqualified quacks in India? Is there a wave of over testing and overdiagnosis? Why do we have one of the biggest antibiotic-resistant populations in the world? Is there a nexus between big pharmaceutical companies and hospitals, that affects us? Weaving through these questions and more, the book uncovers the truth behind the pristine façade of doctors and hospitals.

A gripping exposé that doesn’t shy away from challenging existing notions, a clarion call for reform and change, Sick Business compels you to re-evaluate the ethical compass guiding our medical institutions. In the end, it equips you with some real answers and the tough questions you need to ask when your family’s health – and perhaps your own – is at stake.

About the Author 

After graduating from the prestigious Madras Medical College in 1989, Dr Sumanth C Raman worked as a consultant physician in various hospitals in Chennai. Though medicine was his calling, he has always been interested in the broader aspects of healthcare, this led him to work with Tata Consultancy Services as a key member of their Healthcare Innovation team. He is also a well-known television anchor and a noted political analyst for over three decades. He tweets under the handle @sumanthraman.

For more information, please write to – Shabnam.srivastava@harpercollins.co.in