So my plans to go to the remoter district were put on hold until I think tomorrow, but I've spent a productive week compiling an FAQ on Indian drug pricing and access to treatment. It basically talks about generic vs. brand name drugs, profit margins and mark-ups to retail prices, affordability of the government becoming the primary provider of medicines, and so on. It was really fun to write, as I got to read a bunch of background papers and Prayas presentations to put it together. I also got to make it look pretty with the wonderful visual powers of Microsoft Word. It's being proofread by various partners of Prayas, and then they're going to publish and distribute it all over! I feel cool.

I also proofread and edited a letter Dr. Narendra was sending to Sonia Gandhi, who is the head of the UPA party that is currently in power in Indian government. It was about access to medicine issues. Dr. Narendra thinks Sonia Gandhi is the last hope, because everyone else in power positions in the government wants to "privatize everything."

I attended parts of a two-day training session that Prayas people were holding. As part of the National Rural Health Mission, there is a plan to have Village Health and Sanitation Councils monitor health services provided by the government. This training was held by District Trainers for Block Trainers, who will then go on to train every VHSC in Rajasthan over the next 10 months how to do the monitoring. Let's see how it works out.

I think tomorrow I'm actually going to a remoter district, so I think I'll actually have some interesting pictures to post. I took some pictures of the office and the training session, but the internet's too slow right now to upload them.

Interesting fact: My roommate Kiran is a doctor who also went to a Health Management school in Rajasthan. Apparently his friends, fresh out of their program, are placed into Hospital Administrator positions immediately out of graduation. They head an entire hospital at like age 24-25, which is incredible. It's interesting to value management education/training over experience. Or rather, it's interesting that there's not enough experienced administrators to choose from. Kiran said that the idea of health management being important is relatively new.