On completing 100 years of its existence in 1997, Becton Dickinson, a US-based manufacturer of medical supplies, devices and diagnostic systems, came out with its core ideology for the next 100 years.

It went something like this: ``We will fundamentally improve the health and well being of the world's population. We will reach masses on every corner of earth with information and affordable technologies that have disproportionate impact on the leading causes of illness and death. In 20 years, the BD symbol will be as recognised as the Red Cross symbol when people think of improving people's health all over the world.''

In the same year, Becton Dickinson entered the Indian market. And over the past two years, its Indian face has also formulated and implemented its own visionfor the future. Says C D Sharma, managing director, Becton Dickinson India, ``Internationally, we have helped people live healthier lives. Our goal is to replicate the same here. One of the defined objectives in the India vision is to become a leader in the industry. And the best way to achieve this is to lead through educating our users in disease management-doctors, the para-medical community and patients. By offering them quality support over a long period of time, we hope they will think of BD as a company offering high-quality products supported by education of disease management,'' he says. With India likely to have 57 million diabetics by 2025, according to WHO estimates, one of the main areas of BD's activities is centred around the disease. They recently organised a workshop inviting Dr A K Jhingan, consultant diabetologist with Apollo Hospital, to provide free consultation to needy patients. ``Diabetic care is an area where we organise workshops with experts from within the country and outside toeducate doctors, nurses and patients in disease management. We bring in either experts or disseminate information by organising seminars, lectures or camps,'' informs Piyush Sharma, manager, Diabetes Health Care, Becton Dickinson.

Becton Dickinson workshops are a round-the-year exercise. After its entry into the Indian market in 1997, it has been conducting workshops and seminars regularly on diabetes, tuberculosis, cancer and AIDS. It invited Dr P R J Gangadharam, inventor of the drug `Gangamicin' for a series of seminars on tuberculosis in Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Delhi, earlier this month. Also present were Dr David Durrack, consulting professor of medicine, Duke University Medical Centre and Becton Dickinson research fellow, Dr Salman Siddique.

The health major has been providing opportunities for nurses to upgrade their skills and learn about new developments in the field of patient care. ``We try and create awareness on larger level by addressing the players in the patient care segment.Nurses, for instance, play a vital role in patient care. Our workshops for nurses through tie-ups with various nurses organisations are a progression of this line of thinking,'' says Sharma. BD is working with an all India nurses' organisation called Nurse World and sponsors their newsletter.

Another focus area for the company is the prevention of infections during blood collection. ``We have conducted seminars on pre-analytical standardisation at Vellore and Calcutta, focussing on the clinical management of coagulation and sample collection. BD introduced, for the first time in India, the `vacutainer' system to eliminate pre-analytical errors. Invented by the company way back in 1943, the system is yet to become popular in India,'' says Virendra Sahgal, BD project coordinator for the venture.

With such a wide sweep of activities, how does the company finance its welfare endeavour?

``The funds are culled out not only from the country resources but also the international corporation. We haven't specifiedany annual percentage of our revenues for these activities at present. This is because we are a new company and don't want a linkage between sales and philanthropy. At this point our expenses will be higher than the resources being spent on our charitable activities,'' says Sharma.

Why hasn't BD ventured into media campaigns like Cipla or Torrent, one of the most potent ways of generating awareness?

``We want to take our message to a defined target audience. This way there is minimal spillage and wastage. If we go for a print campaign, we will get vast publicity. But with the same budget, if we were to go only to doctors, para-medics or nurses, we can achieve much more. We want to spend less money on advertising and more on actual projects on the ground,'' concludes Sharma.