Hi,

Although I have never taken speech therapy from Mr. Adlakha, but I had had two bad experiences with him, which have led me to form a none-too-favorable opinion about him.

The first was about 6-7 years ago. I got to know about him through an internet search, and called him. He game me an appointment.

I went to him, there I was told that his consultation fee is Rs. 350/-, which I paid gladly. But the consultation was a sales-call. He spent 12 minutes of a 15 minutes meeting trying to convince me to join his therapy. At that time his therapy used to cost Rs. 15,000/-, all of which had to be paid upfront, with no exit clause.

15K wasn't such a big amount, and I would have paid him, but I was seriously put off by his behavior and didn't join his therapy. Recently I came to know that now his fees are Rs. 40,000/- and one has to still pay upfront without any exit clause.

The second experience was about 2 months ago. In our SHG meeting, there are few people who taken therapy from Mr. Adlakha. A few of them asked me to come to Mr. Adlakha's so called self-help group "Swar Sudhar". I asked them to first confirm with Mr. Adlakha whether I am welcome or not. And as predicted, Mr. Adlakha said that anybody who hasn't paid the fees isn't allowed.

I do not have a problem with that, he runs the groups in his premises and it is his prerogative who he allows and whom he doesn't. But why he advertises this like he is doing a social service, and running a self-help group for all stutterers.

It is very clearly a business venture for him, and he runs it like that only without any real care for stutterers.

Nitin

Note: These are views of author and TISA doesn't necessarily condone these.

Dear Friends
I am a medical (MBBS) doctor who worked for many years in mission hospitals. I agree that for many of us clinical work eventually does become an occupation, a means to earn our livelihood. But still, every profession exercises ethical controls and standards. The professional fee has some relation to the actual services given. Also to general economical environment. A cholecystectomy in India should not cause what it does in America. If one surgery takes just 2 hours and another 5 hours, then the difference should reflect in the fee structure too. There are other factors: the competence, training, skill required of the surgeon, his experience, what does he actually do in that two hours etc.

If anything goes wrong, (like leaving a clamp inside), patient has a recourse to compensation through consumer courts. As far as I know, field of speech therapy does not have any of these safe guards or practices. No wonder, that many PWS are so sceptical. Again, no wonder that many SLP trained here, migrate abroad for lack of work and support.

What Nitin has documented is just the tip of the iceberg. Only solution is: SLPs should have a professional regulatory body and rise to more accountability and transparency. They should also have the courage to stop using the word "cure" in the sense it is being done now. Like corporations, they too have a "corporate social responsibility- where in SHGs will be very happy to help them.
sachin