This is perhaps a rural-urban divide case and hospitals also sell it to make extra money in India.
China and India are going through the same mentality whereas in India this is very popular in rural areas as well as among quacks who make money out of this unnecessary practice.
An article published in the medical journal BMJ written by a Chinese nurse working in the department of liver surgery showed that the country consumed 10.4 billion bottles of infusion fluid in 2009 — roughly eight bottles on average for each inhabitant. Other countries, in contrast, rarely show consumption as high as 2.5 to 3 bottles per person.
It showed that overuse of intravenous infusion is a “controversial topic” in mainland China. “Intravenous infusion of drugs or fluid is normally reserved for patients whose condition cannot be effectively treated by injection or drugs taken orally.”
This is also common among Indians. In the villages of West Bengal, they seek allopathy treatment and think IV drip is a treatment. So many quacks in Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and remote areas of West Bengal quacks administed vitamin and saline drips to the satisfaction of the patients. These patients often doubt the doctor’s credibility if they are not given a prescription or are sent home empty-handed because doctors fail to explain properly. People who get used to quacks expect the same mode of treatment from the graduate doctors. It is to be note medicine is a skills, not all doctors can practice it well. So, they work play with the psychology of the people who are gullible.
In India, ordinary citizens learn what local leaders say. If the leader says China goods are not good, ignorant people also repeat it not knowing that there is something called segregation of goods as per clients. It is natural for such semi educated people “believing by JUST seeing, or believing by such HEARING in India so they just spread rumours on unverified visuals of crowded hospitals and young children receiving IV drips.
Jagoran 