Sourav Ganguly’s heart attack and some reflections on India’s health system priorities

… it’s all driven by celebrity concerns, not science

Sourav Ganguly, the ex-India cricketer, captain, and currently the president of the Board of Cricket Control of India has suffered heart attack and has undergone stenting in a Calcutta hospital, within six hours of the attack (the justified course of action). The twitterati of India were all over the place wishing their “elder brother” (dada as they say in Bengal) speedy recovery and heaved sighs of relief that all is well with him.

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23SouravGanguly&src=typeahead_click

Even the chief minister of the state of West Bengal, where Sourav has ancestral home, tweeted thus:

Surprisingly, you’d not hear a single word of concern from these people considering that millions of Indians suffer from stroke every year. a paper by Kamalakannan estimate that the incidence of stroke per 100K Indians per year is anywhere between 100–150.