Dutch doctor says group will keep sending abortion pills to US women

France24 – AFP, 16 May 2022

Rebecca Gomperts, the founder of abortion-rights groups Women on Waves and
Aid Access, is seen in Amsterdam in September 2020 Remko de Waal ANP/AFP/File

Washington (AFP) – Rebecca Gomperts, a 55-year-old Dutch physician, has spent years fighting for women's access to abortion around the world. 

Made famous by her "abortion boat," as recounted in the 2014 documentary "Vessel," she and her Women on Waves group have anchored the ship in international waters off the coasts of Poland, Spain, Mexico and other countries, offering medical abortions to women otherwise unable to obtain them. 

But it is in the United States that interest has been surging in her other organization, Aid Access, which since 2018 has provided abortion pills over the internet. 

Behind the fast-rising demand is what appears -- based on a rare leak from the US Supreme Court -- to be the imminent end of federal protection for abortion rights. Once the court makes its decision official, probably next month, some 20 states are poised to ban or severely restrict abortions. 

"We're already seeing a huge increase in requests," Gomperts told AFP, saying some people were "panicking." 

"It's not only when this takes place; it has already made people aware how vulnerable they are." 

Aid Access, based in Austria, has been working with physicians to fill requests in the 20 US states where abortion pills can be legally prescribed by telemedicine. 

For requests from the other states, Gompert's group has exploited a legal loophole to send the pills from abroad. 

Demand was strong even before word of the high court's intentions leaked out. In a little more than a year (from October 2020 to December 2021), Aid Access says it received more than 45,000 requests from the United States. 

Reasons for the requests vary: the high cost of other abortion services, the cost and difficulty of traveling to distant abortion clinics, or the impossibility of doing so due to job or child-care demands. 

After filling out a questionnaire, women are instructed on how to take the pills at home. The price is adjusted depending on their ability to pay, and the pills are mailed from a pharmacy in India. Aid Access checks in with the women afterward. 

The most vulnerable

The pills are easy to find elsewhere on the internet, usually for a few hundred dollars. But those websites, also based outside the United States, are purely commercial and provide no medical support. 

For Gomperts, who in 2020 was listed as one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time magazine, the fight for abortion rights is a matter of "social justice." 

"The biggest problem is that the women that are not literate, that cannot read and write, that have no access to internet -- the most impoverished group -- they will not be able to find these solutions," she said. 

Many of them would lack the resources to travel to a state where abortion remains legal. 

"These are the women that might be forced to give birth or that will take drastic measures to end their pregnancy."  

These pills -- mifepristone and misoprostol -- can be used in generally very safe
at-home abortions, experts say; this picture comes from the Plan C advocacy
group Elisa WELLS PLAN C/AFP/File

The certain result, Gomperts said, will be an increase in maternal mortality and morbidity. 

A safe method

According to a 2017 survey of several thousand women in the United States, 20 percent of those who had attempted an at-home abortion used the pills, 29 percent used other drugs, 38 percent used plant-based infusions and 20 percent tried physical methods (some used more than one method, so the total exceeds 100 percent). 

During recent demonstrations outside the Supreme Court, women protesters brandished a disturbing object, something that seemed an artifact from a long-ago era: metal clothes-hangers -- a symbol of highly risky abortions performed clandestinely. 

And yet, up to the 10th week of pregnancy, abortion pills are very safe, experts say. 

A demonstrator holds up a clothes hanger marked 'Never Again' during an abortion
rights rally May 3, 2022 outside the US Supreme Court Stefani Reynolds AFP/File

 Today they represent half of all abortions in the United States (in France, by way of comparison, the figure is 70 percent). And their use outside of any medical setting is a "very acceptable" option, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). 

Two drugs are used: first a dose of mifepristone is taken to block the hormones that support a pregnancy; then, 24 to 48 hours later, misoprostol is taken to induce contractions. 

Complications that might require medical help -- an excessive flow of blood, an infection or an allergic reaction -- are rare. 

So, beyond the medical aspect, the real risk to at-home abortions is legal complications. 

The NGO If/When/How has counted 60 cases in which women who allegedly self-managed abortions, or people who assisted them, were arrested, charged or sentenced between 2000 and 2020. 

The group, which says it envisions "a future when all people can self-determine their reproductive lives free from discrimination, coercion or violence," helps find legal representation for such women. 

It fears the trend toward criminalizing abortion will be greatly aggravated if the Supreme Court rules as expected. 

Such a ruling, said Gomperts, "instills fear in people, and especially in health-care providers -- and that is the biggest impact."

As doctors go virtual, pandemic turbocharges telemedicine

Yahoo – AFP, Kelly MACNAMARA, June 2, 2020

Governments and private firms have set up telemedicine clinics for patients who
suspect they have the new coronavirus (AFP Photo/Alexander NEMENOV)

Will visiting the doctor ever be the same again?

In a matter of weeks, the coronavirus pandemic sparked a technological revolution in healthcare systems across the world that might otherwise have taken years.

Spurred on by fears of contagion in wards and waiting rooms, many health practitioners are replacing the face-to-face meetings that have always underpinned general practice, with patient consultations by telephone and online video apps.

Some of the most radical changes have been in primary healthcare, where doctors have often faced shortages of protective equipment, but specialists in everything from mental health to eye care have also turned to technology to treat patients at a distance.

"General practice has undergone significant changes in the way GPs and our teams have delivered patient care during the pandemic -- and the speed in which these changes were implemented has been remarkable," Professor Martin Marshall, Chair of Britain's Royal College of GPs told AFP.

As the virus spread, health authorities in the UK, Europe and elsewhere updated guidance on everything from data protection to how to build trust remotely.

The United States rolled back restrictions on access to telemedicine, and eased privacy regulations to allow people to use platforms like Skype and FaceTime.

"People are now seeing this model, which we thought would take years and years to develop. And it's probably been accelerated by a decade," Chris Jennings, US policy consultant and former White House health care adviser told STAT news recently.

Globally, 58 percent of surveyed countries are now using telemedicine, the World Health Organization said Monday, adding the figure was 42 percent among low income nations.

Layla McCay, a director at the NHS Confederation representing British healthcare services, told AFP that most of the UK's 1.2 million daily face-to-face primary care consultations were done remotely "in the space of weeks".

But there were challenges.

"My first video consultation was a mess. Builders were drilling, the microphone failed, a colleague walked in, and lockdown was imminent," Camille Gajria, a doctor and clinical teaching fellow at Imperial College London, told the British Medical Journal.

She said teleconsultations can be efficient but warned of "cognitive bias" -- a doctor, for example, might assume that a child playing in the background is the one being discussed.

Hospitals like this one in Mexico have used online video platforms to let COVID-19 

patients communicate remotely with their families (AFP Photo/ULISES RUIZ)

There are also concerns that vulnerable patients might find it difficult to talk about mistreatment at home, while elderly people could struggle to navigate unfamiliar technology.

Remote medicine

Telemedicine may seem like a product of the internet age, but it has been around for decades, developing alongside communication technology.

One big leap came during the space race of the 1960s, when scientists worried about the effect of zero gravity on the human body. Would it impede blood circulation or breathing?

To find out, both the US and Soviet Union conducted test flights with animals hooked up to medical monitoring systems that transmitted biometric data back to scientists on Earth. Later, longer missions meant astronauts needed systems that could diagnose and help treat medical emergencies.

NASA went on to develop terrestrial telemedicine, including a project to provide healthcare to the isolated Tohono O'odham reservation in Arizona, as well as disaster response in the 1985 Mexico City and 1988 Armenia earthquakes.

While the coronavirus pandemic has driven sweeping changes in the way many people see their local doctor, it has also highlighted the role telemedicine can play in connecting clinicians with remote communities.

In India, which has just 8.6 medical workers per 10,000 people according to 2018 WHO figures, the majority of doctors are concentrated in urban centres, while some 70 percent of people live in rural areas.

Ayush Mishra, founder of the telehealth provider Tattvan, said this means people outside bigger towns are often forced to seek medical advice from overstretched or ill-qualified practitioners.

His business, one of a growing number of telehealth providers in India, operates 18 clinics, mostly ATM-style booths that are manned by a medical assistant who can take vital measurements and linked with doctors in private hospitals in larger towns.

The firm languished in a legal grey zone for years until the coronavirus crisis spurred the government into broadening regulatory approval for virtual consultations. Now he hopes to open hundreds of clinics around the country.

Mishra traces his enthusiasm for telemedicine to a horrific motorbike accident when he was a biomedical engineering student in the northern city of Jaipur.

Governments and private firms have set up telemedicine clinics for patients 

who suspect they have the new coronavirus (AFP Photo/Alexander NEMENOV)

Severely injured, he was driven ten hours to his hometown in Uttar Pradesh, before falling into a coma as a local doctor performed surgery.

His family was overwhelmed by "panic" until his father spoke by telephone to a surgeon at a hospital in Delhi, enabling them to arrange treatment in the city.

Mishra lost his leg, but told AFP the experience inspired him to want to equalise medical access for people in smaller towns.

"You need to be able to offer this access -- it's a human right," he said.

Not going back?

Internet-connected thermometers, pulse oximeters to measure oxygen levels, and smart devices that monitor vital signs are all widening the scope of what is possible in remote medicine.

In an April article for JAMA Neurology, experts from the Netherlands and US said telemedicine could be a useful tool for in-home training, such as activities for survivors of stroke. Patients, they noted, could be monitored via sensors in watches or phones.

"We hope that this current COVID-19 crisis will soon be resolved. However, it is as the old saying goes: 'never waste a good crisis'," they said.

"Telemedicine for chronic neurological disorders should become part of the new normal rather than the exception."

Marshall said there are still many routine procedures -- vaccinations, blood tests and physical examinations -- that cannot be done remotely.

"Those living with multiple conditions and other complex health needs really benefit from seeing their doctor in person -- and this is helpful for the GP, as well," he said.

But he added that research supports the use of remote consultations for patients with simple conditions, or who have "transactional" needs like a repeat prescription.

Many say they want at least some of the changes to stay.

"It has certainly turbocharged the digital transition nationally," said McCay of the NHS Confederation.

"Lots of feedback from our members shows the culture has fundamentally changed, and clinicians who were perhaps previously resistant to digitisation are now realising its benefits."

"We can't go backwards," she added.

Babies born on floor as Zimbabwe's health system totters

Yahoo – AFP, Ish MAFUNDIKWA, with Zinyange AUNTONY in Bulawayo, December 4, 2019

Where a child is born: Esther Gwena, 69, who acts as a midwife but has no
training, lays down sheets in her rundown apartment -- a makeshift maternity
unit (AFP Photo/Jekesai NJIKIZANA)

Harare (AFP) - The floor is dusty, the walls filthy and the furniture decrepit, but for two weeks last month a tiny flat in a Harare township was transformed into a maternity clinic where scores of babies were born.

Its owner, 69-year-old Esther Gwena, says she helped to deliver 250 infants as Zimbabwe's health sector tottered -- a feat that earned comparisons to Florence Nightingale, the pioneer of modern nursing.

Hundreds of junior medics at state hospitals began a strike three months ago because their salaries -- less than $200 a month -- are not enough to live on in a country gripped by 500 percent inflation.

Nurses are only working two days a week.

Those who can't afford private care -- the majority of the 14 million people reeling under an economic crisis compounded by acute food shortages -- suffer at home or seek help from people like Gwena.

Senior doctors, in a letter last week, said state hospitals had become a "death trap" and warned of a "slow genocide".

Gwena, a widow and member of the local Apostolic Faith sect, is a self-taught midwife.

When the health services strike peaked last month, she came to the rescue.

In need: Monica Bepu, 33, heavily pregnant with her second 

child, sits on a bench in the passage outside Esther Gwena's 

two-room flat in Harare (AFP Photo/Jekesai NJIKIZANA)

'I had to do something'

"A man came to me and said there were two women in advanced labour at (a nearby clinic) but the place was closed because the nurses were on strike," she told AFP in her two-room flat in Mbare township.

She rushed there and found that one of the women had a baby which had died.

"I took the other one to my place, where I helped her. The baby survived. From that time, I knew I had to do something," she said.

Word that she was helping deliver babies for free spread quickly.

The state-owned television ZBC described her as "a modern Zimbabwean version of Florence Nightingale" and First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa visited Gwena and donated food, detergents and blankets.

A funeral services company chipped in with a mobile water tank and pitched a tent outside to serve as a waiting room for women before they went into advanced labour.

"I helped to deliver 250 babies ... (they) are alive and kicking and at home with their mothers," Gwena said.

Two weeks later, the government asked her to stop after a nearby maternity clinic reopened.

Winnie Denhere, 35, cradled her two-day-old baby boy outside the clinic, where she had taken him for an immunisation injection.

"Everything went very well, she didn't ask us for money," she said, speaking of Gwena, who brought her child into the world.

A moment for prayer: Gwena belongs to an Apostolic religious sect where she 

says she got her calling to take up midwifery. She says she has delivered as 

many as 250 children (AFP Photo/Jekesai NJIKIZANA)

'People dying'

But while some laud Gwena as a selfless do-gooder, doctors worry that she exposed herself, the mothers, the babies to infection.

"We need to do something about our facilities so no one goes to her," Harare's director of medical services Prosper Chonzi, said.

Medicines have been in short supply and broken machines go unrepaired.

The government has fired 448 junior doctors for striking.

Senior doctors last week also stopped work in protest over the sacking of junior colleagues. Dozens marched in Harare on Monday.

"People dying has become the order of the day in our hospitals," said the vice-president of the Senior Hospital Doctors Association Raphael Magota.

He told AFP machines were breaking down and that intensive care units were only able to treat two or three people "due to lack of equipment".

A senior doctor, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the situation has become untenable.

Gwena collects water in a bucket as she prepares for a long day (AFP Photo/

Jekesai NJIKIZANA)

"There is no public health in Zimbabwe at the moment; everything has come to a standstill," he said.

Even the scarce equipment is often not right.

"One needs gloves that fit just right when performing delicate operations, but we get old gloves that are too big," said another doctor.

A UN special rapporteur on food security, Hilal Elver, last week spoke of "disturbing information" that public hospitals had exhausted food stocks, forcing them to seek humanitarian aid and that medical equipment in some cases was "no longer operational".

In the second largest city of Bulawayo, Zimbabweans living abroad are helping in a small way by crowdfunding and sending money back home to offer health care for the vulnerable.

One such initiative is Citizwean Clinic, which opened its doors last month and attended to hundreds of patients in the first five days -- providing free consultation and drugs.

"We go to the hospital these days it's bad, there are no doctors. We heard that there were doctors here," said hypertensive patient Elina Dzingire, 63.

"We've really been helped here," she told AFP from the clinic in the city's Cowdray Park township.

Health Minister Obadiah Moyo admitted the situation in hospitals is constrained but says the government will soon advertise the posts left vacant by the sacked doctors.

Insys founder convicted of bribing doctors to prescribe opiates

Yahoo – AFP, May 3, 2019

Almost 400,000 people have died from overdoses involving prescription or illicit
opioids over the past two decades, according to the CDC (AFP Photo/ALEX WONG)

New York (AFP) - The founder of Insys Therapeutics on Thursday became the first head of a major US pharmaceutical to be convicted of bribing doctors to prescribe addictive painkillers blamed for fueling an opioid crisis that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

John Kapoor, 76, was found guilty of criminal conspiracy, along with four other former executives of the Arizona-based firm.

The former billionaire and his co-defendants, including regional sales director Sunrise Lee, a former stripper, face up to 20 years in prison, and will be sentenced at a later date.

Two other executives pleaded guilty and testified at the trial in Boston which lasted a little over two months.

"Today's convictions mark the first successful prosecution of top pharmaceutical executives for crimes related to the illicit marketing and prescribing of opioids," federal prosecutor Andrew E. Lelling said in a statement.

"Just as we would street-level drug dealers, we will hold pharmaceutical executives responsible for fueling the opioid epidemic by recklessly and illegally distributing these drugs, especially while conspiring to commit racketeering along the way," he said.

In 2017, President Donald Trump declared the opioid crisis a national public health emergency.

Almost 400,000 people have died from overdoses involving prescription or illicit opioids over the past two decades, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 48,000 people died in 2017 alone from opiate overdose.

Chart showing US drug overdose death rates by opioid category, source 

of opioids and how it works (AFP Photo/Gal ROMA)

"This is a landmark prosecution that vindicated the public's interest in staunching the flow of opioids into our homes and streets," Lelling said.

To increase sales of their fentanyl spray Subsys, a painkiller 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, Insys executives set up a system of large-scale bribes.

Between 2012 and 2015, they paid health professionals to prescribe large quantities of the highly addictive drug, which was approved to alleviate severe pain in terminal cancer patients.

Doctors were encouraged to recommend the spray to patients who did not need it and also in excessive doses.

Officially, the bribes were paid as fees to doctors speaking at seminars for health professionals to praise the benefits of the drug.

The company's aggressive marketing tactics reportedly also included sales representatives making a rap video to promote the drug.

In some years, Insys paid more than $10 million in bribes in this way. The heads of the firm also set up a scheme to mislead health insurance companies to reimburse patients for the costs of the drug.

According to Insys' annual report, Subsys sales reached $329.5 million in 2015.

The group went public in 2013. Kapoor resigned from the board in October 2017, a few days after his indictment.

Supreme court upholds sentence for man who helped mother, 99, to die

DutchNews, April 16, 2019

An elderly man who helped his 99-year-old mother to die 10 years ago has had his six month suspended jail sentence upheld by the Supreme Court, ending a lengthy legal process. 

Albert Heringa (75) was earlier cleared on all charges but the Supreme Court said in March 2017 there should be a retrial because euthanasia carried out by someone other than a doctor must be subject to ‘very strict rules’. 

In the subsequent trial, Heringa was sentenced to a six month suspended jail term, which he appealed. That conviction has now been confirmed. 

Heringa’s lawyer Tim Vis told website Nu.nl that he was disappointed with the ruling. ‘We will consider the verdict carefully and may look at approaching the European court for human rights in Strasburg,’ he said. 

Lethal dose 

Heringa decided to help his mother die when doctors refused her request to administer a lethal dose of medication. 

He filmed his mother, who was almost blind and suffering from crippling back pains, as he helped her take the pills that would kill her. She had been secretly storing up the pills for some time. 

The footage featured in a documentary called De laatste wens van Moek (Mum’s final wish) which was broadcast in 2010.

Germany's highest court reopens painful debate on assisted suicidehttps://t.co/Gu0219lu2z pic.twitter.com/07mpBif8N4

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 16 april 2019

Drugs firm GSK stops visiting Dutch family doctors

DutchNews, April 8, 2019

Photo: Depositphotos.com

Representatives of British pharmaceuticals giant GSK have stopped visiting family doctors in the Netherlands because they are ‘less open’ to information about drugs, the Financieele Dagblad said on Monday. 

GSK Nederland director Daan Gijbels told the paper that the decision to stop the visits is ‘painful’ and that he fears it will be more difficult to get new and more effective products to patients. 

‘Society has become more negative about the pharmaceuticals industry,’ he said. ‘This means the doctors visits were no longer effective.’ On average, GSK reps visited seven to eight doctors a week. 

The Dutch family doctors association NHG said it welcomed the decision and that it had been advising doctors for some time to refuse visits by sales reps.

Dutch dentists, doctors throw weight behind big tobacco court case

DutchNews, February 13, 2018

Photo: DutchNews.nl

Two Dutch family doctors’ associations and the national dentists association have thrown their weight behind the anti-smoking law suit which aims to prove the big tobacco companies deliberately conspired to make people addicts. 

The health professionals’ organisations are the latest in a string of groups to support the action, started in 2016 by lung cancer patient Anne Marie van Veen and lawyer Bénédicte Ficq. They accuse the tobacco firms of doing ‘deliberate damage to public health’ and ‘forgery of documents’. 

Tobacco is by far the biggest cause of mouth cancer and more than 75% of mouth and throat cancer cases can be traced to smoking, the dentists association KNMT told the AD. 

‘As doctors, we contribute to a healthier society and that is why we are supporting this action,’ Rob Dijkstra, chairman of the family doctors association NHG said in a statement. 

The city of Amsterdam,  the city’s cancer hospital AVL and the Dutch addiction treatment sector have also recently said they are supporting the ‘sick of smoking’ campaign, which is now backed by 21 different organisations. 

Attempted murder 

The complaint, which is still being assessed by the public prosecution service, is being brought against the four tobacco manufacturers that are active in the Netherlands: Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International and Imperial Tobacco Benelux.

It describes the ‘crimes’ committed by the tobacco firms as ‘attempted murder, alternatively attempted manslaughter and/or attempted severe and premeditated physical abuse and/or attempted deliberate and premeditated injuring of health.’ 

In addition, the firms are guilty of ‘forgery since the tobacco manufacturers have for years declared emission levels of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide on the packages of their tobacco products which were lower than the actual emission levels.’

Related Articles:

Addiction clinics join Dutch criminal case against big tobacco

Top Dutch cancer hospital joins tobacco class action lawsuit

Doctors and physiotherapists join Dutch law suit against big tobacco

Doctors help finance lawsuit against tobacco companies


"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“…  The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. ...”

India unveils healthcare for 500 million of its poorest

Yahoo – AFP, February 1, 2018

India has an estimated 840,000 medical doctors -- one for every 1,674 people -- far
fewer than the one per 1,000 people recommended by the World Health Organization
(AFP Photo/PRAKASH SINGH)

India on Thursday announced a national healthcare scheme for half a billion of its poorest citizens in a major giveaway to voters in the final budget before a general election.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said India's most vulnerable families would be able to access up to 500,000 rupees ($7,855) a year for hospital cover through the initiative.

India spends a little over one percent of its GDP on public healthcare -- one of the lowest proportions in the world -- a sum the government is aiming to increase to 2.5 percent by 2025.

The government currently provides 30,000 rupees towards healthcare for poor families, but that sum is insufficient to cover most medical procedures.

The programme would take public healthcare in the world's largest democracy "to a new aspiration level", said Jaitley.

"This will be the world's largest government-funded healthcare programme," he told parliament in his budget speech.

"The government is steadily but surely progressing towards a goal of universal health coverage."

He said "adequate funds" would be provided to roll out the insurance program to 500 million of India's poorest nationwide.

Nearly $190 million was earmarked to improve smaller local health centres accessed by many of the most vulnerable, he added.

India is home to 1.25 billion people but lacks sufficient doctors, and state-run hospitals are stretched to breaking point.

Patients face long delays for even minor treatment, and a consultation with a private GP can cost 1,000 rupees ($15) -- a huge sum for millions living on less than $2 a day.

Jaitley said the government was "seriously concerned" that millions of Indians had to borrow or sell assets to receive adequate treatment in hospital.

India only has an estimated 840,000 medical doctors -- one for every 1,674 people -- far fewer than the one per 1,000 people recommended by the World Health Organization.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a thumping mandate in 2014 promising, among other things, a universal healthcare plan to protect India's poorest.

The budget is his government's last before Indians go back to the polls for a general election, which must be called by May next year.

Pharmaceutical companies raise health service sponsorship to €58m

DutchNews, May 11, 2017

Pharmaceutical companies spent €58.5m sponsoring doctors, patients organisations and healthcare providers last year, the Volkskrant said on Thursday. 

This is a rise of 13% on 2015, the paper said, quoting figures from the Transparantieregister Zorg, set up five years ago to provide details about healthcare sponsorship.

Most of the increase is due to extra spending on care institutions and doctors. Payment to patients organisations fell by €500,000 to €1.7m. Less money also went to pay doctors to speak at conferences, a trend which first began in Britain with GlaxoSmithKline. 

Sponsoring by pharmaceutical companies is controversial because it can give rise to conflicts of interest. ‘Companies are not paying €58m in order to get nothing back. They are not philanthropists,’ said Ruud Coolen van Brakel of the IVM institute which investigates prescription patterns.

‘The sponsor cash paid to patients organisations is recouped in the price of medicines,’ he said. ‘No-one asks if we all benefit from this.’