Every day I stumble upon news after news of chaos and violence creeping into the space of healthcare, which ironically, is the industry responsible to keep people live and kicking.
As a budding doctor on the cusp of making sense of the profession I worked so hard to be part of, it scares and baffles me. Every incident precedes the previous, in setting a new low in way patients feel about their doctors and vice versa.
How did we reach here? Let’s try to break it down.
Prohibitive cost – Mother of all worries.
Un willingly spent one rupee is more expensive than willingly spend crores of rupees. No one wants to be sick. But diseases come as a sad accident and make you spend money against your will.
India is a rich country of poor people. The disparity among the rich and poor is so high that the common man is constantly salivating at the plush life of the high and mighty. And while he’s at it, trying to make peace with his struggle, out of nowhere strikes some bad disease that is going to toss him out of work. Cost him his hard saved paisa for the treatment. Worst case, may leave him with lifelong disability of a poor quality of life.
Juxtapose this to the fact that India has some of the best healthcare facilities in the world. We offer treatment at a fraction of the cost compared to the west.
I can be reached here and here.
Here is where the comparison becomes flawed. Listen carefully.
The cost of healthcare in the west is borne mainly by the government. The foreigners who come to India for treatment for whatever reason, still earn more per capita compared to an average Indian. So the treatment is at a fraction of cost according to their affordability scale. Not ours, the average Indian. I would still find it nerve racking to shell out rs. 50,000, assuming a salary of rs. 25,000 a month and maintaining a family, paying for a house, vehicle, daily expenses, at a short notice for admission into any of the multispecialty private hospitals. On the other hand, it is 700 US dollars, which is not a huge medical expense for a person where poverty line is below 1000 US dollars a month. It is a fraction of cost for him, not us.
India, via its constitution promised all its citizens, irrespective of socio economic background free healthcare. As they say, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. The quality is so poor that patient does not feel confident of the treatment he’ll undergo. And since its the government, and free of cost, the patient cannot complain. All he can do is move to a private provider. Citizens in India practically cannot fight against the government. At best they can tweet, make facebook posts, and watch debates on television.
We are still to crack the formula of making everyone pay direct taxes and provide all the tax payers the benefit of that money.
Indians have just started to shift from save money mentality to more money mentality.
Poor people are easy to govern. They don’t question the government back. Have few basic demands. Are too absorbed in their struggle of daily life.
With a disease taking away their little savings, they have nothing to loose anymore and the anger of helplessness has to vent out somewhere. That somewhere is the hospital, the immediate reason for their sudden poverty.
(It will be series of essays, as one huge pile of words is extremely boring to read, hoping that you are not yawning, yet)
Have a great day.
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