Blurring the Lines
In contemporary Goa, the practice of medicine appears increasingly shaped by marketing rather than by medical ethics. The most prominent private hospital in South Goa, situated at Malbhat in Margao, provides a striking example of how health-care advertising has evolved into an industry of persuasion. Through constant publicity, strategic placement of billboards and the circulation of branded calendars and placards, it seeks to project an image of indispensability. What was once an essential public service has now become a commercial product, packaged and promoted with the precision of any consumer good.
Competitive Distortion
This hospital’s dominance is not only economic but perceptual. Its continuous advertising creates a belief that quality medical treatment is available only within its premises, thereby marginalising smaller clinics and diverting patient trust away from public institutions. The situation mirrors market distortion familiar in corporate sectors rather than in medical practice. By narrowing the public’s sense of choice, such tactics cultivate an impression that access to reliable health care must pass exclusively through one corporate gate.
False Shortages
A subtler consequence of this dominance is the manufactured sense of scarcity. The hospital’s public messages, particularly its emphasis on advanced cardiac procedures and urgent care facilities, suggest that certain treatments cannot be efficiently performed elsewhere. This narrative indirectly weakens public confidence in the South Goa District Hospital and similar state-run institutions, despite their legal mandate to serve all citizens. In effect, an artificial hierarchy of competence is created, sustained by repeated advertising rather than by evidence of clinical outcomes.
Ethical Boundaries
The Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002, prohibit self-advertisement and solicitation of patients. Yet these rules are increasingly ignored. Billboards highlight doctors’ former roles at Goa Medical College as promotional assets, conflicting with the principle that medical reputation should be based on competence and integrity rather than commercial publicity.
Penetrating Public Offices
A scene in Margao Trial Court shows marketing’s reach: calendars with the hospital’s emblem on clerical desks. Their placement in a judicial space is deliberate ambient advertising, normalising the hospital within a neutral institution. Distributing branded material to public servants crosses an ethical line between professional visibility and institutional infiltration.
Monopoly in the Making
The hospital’s large billboard opposite the South Goa District Hospital symbolises strategic dominance. By promoting cardiac care under the Deen Dayal Swasthya Seva Yojana scheme, it aligns itself with public welfare while diverting government-subsidised patients to a private facility. This market positioning risks sidelining smaller competitors and weakening state health services.
Public Interest Question
The question that arises is whether medical care can remain an ethical profession when its primary means of outreach imitates commercial advertising. The purpose of medicine is to heal, not to sell. By saturating the social and physical environment with its brand, the hospital cultivates dependence upon itself rather than trust in the broader health-care system. This commercial model risks undermining the collective objective of universal and equitable access to medical services envisaged under the National Health Policy of 2017.
Comparison Abroad
In countries with universal health care like Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand, hospitals rarely advertise because taxation-funded systems ensure equal access. Physicians follow cultural norms of restraint. In contrast, Goa shows how unregulated privatisation can undermine parity and weaken the social contract between medical providers and patients.
Loss of Public Trust
The proliferation of promotional materials within Margao’s civic spaces gradually conditions the public mind. When citizens perceive that only certain institutions can deliver results, their confidence in government hospitals weakens. This imbalance compels even low-income patients to seek loans or sell assets for private treatment. The ethical lapse thereby multiplies into an economic burden. In the long term, the trust deficit between citizens and the state’s medical infrastructure becomes nearly irreversible.
Role of Regulation
Regulatory intervention is therefore indispensable. The Goa Medical Council and the National Medical Commission must re-examine whether hospitals engaging in overt marketing are acting within the spirit of the 2002 Ethics Regulations. The Council has the power to direct institutions to desist from unauthorised publicity, particularly when such publicity involves government-funded schemes or public offices. Regular audits of compliance, coupled with transparent publication of violations, could restore public faith in the fairness of medical competition.
Lessons for South Goa
South Goa needs reaffirmation that health is a public good. The district hospital facing a private billboard symbolises a clash between equitable care and commercial exclusivity. Public care needs government investment and awareness, while private care relies on visibility and market control. Without balance, medical ethics in Goa will erode.
A Call for Ethics
The presence of marketing material on official desks, credentials used as advertisements, and branded visibility in public spaces signal an ethical crisis, not enterprise. Medicine in Goa must return to service. True healing needs humility, and a community’s moral health lies in sincere care, not in hospital billboard size.
