Aanchal Bhatia, a clinical phycologist and writer of the book, Your Doctor is not God explains to Riya Sharma awareness is the need of the hour. Through her book, she is trying to bridge the gap between a doctor and a patient
She is a clinical psychologist and a devoting family person. Aanchal Bhatia, writer of the book, Your Doctor is not God has been closely associated with the profession of healthcare due to her organisation, Breathe Easy India, saw her father-in-law suffer in spite of all the resources available. “The moment when I saw other side of the healthcare was when my father-in-law got sick. When we went to the hospital, he was showing signs that he is going to have a stroke. You can prevent a stroke from happening if you follow certain medical protocols. But, the junior doctor skipped the details and we took him to different hospitals, and he eventually went into coma. I nursed him, I saw the hospital system up-close in person and even though we were really influential, we suffered and that is how it all started,” she shared.
At the book launch at ITC Maurya in presence of Salma Ansari, vice president’s wife, Bhatia, recounted that the greed of the doctors to earn more made her write the book. “I started this company where I was selling oxygen cylinders called OxyGo, and it was a start-up. So, I would go myself, meet doctors, and think that we have come with something where people can use oxygen cylinders at home. And doctors used to ask me, how much commission will you give meIJ ‘Your cylinder is just `6000, what will I get out of it’IJ Their response was, ‘I’d rather give them something worth `40,000 to them and earn more money’. And, I used to think that you are making them bed-ridden for the rest of their lives, why not give them a solutionIJ I kept looking at different sides of the healthcare,” she said.
Bhatia added, “Then I got into the medical concierge business where I decided to that I am going to plug in these gaps, I am going to construct a business where I am going to represent the patient. I am going to get clients who are going to pay me a fee and I will take care of the health. There were a lot of case studies that I saw and there was so much to be shared so I started writing the book in October. And, I finished writing it by December.”
Bhatia told us that she wants to create awareness among people as well as doctors. “I want doctors as well as people to read my book so that the imbalance between the doctor/ patient relationship gets solved. It is so one- sided right now. If the intention is good, then the problem within the system can be resolved. Today, people go to a hospital not because of the name of the hospital but for a doctor—and, they are losing out their names. If they change themselves, then the system will automatically flourish,” she pointed out.
Talking about the research that she has done on her part, Bhatia shared that these are all her learnings as a phycologist. “These are my experiences and I believe a lot in holistic health. Few years back, this started happening with me. I used to wake up at night and suffer from severe allergies, until when of my friends asked me if it was something phycologicalIJ I started reading about it and got to know that it was something psychological that was bothering me,” she said and added, “I figured out that it was all in my mind. That is when I realised that it is mind over matter. There is a separate chapter in my book that talks about the choices that we make. If you have cancer, then it is because you have chosen it. All diseases according to me are by choice that we make. This is why awareness plays an important role in identifying with the problems. It is important to know what is happening in your sub-conscious, what are the emotions that you are blocking. Dealing with them before hand is necessary and thus, prevention is important for all of us. In India, people want treatment, but you first focus should be on prevention.”