A non-existent system of regulation allows unscrupulous profiteers to mint money from private sector hospitals, which comprise nearly 80 per cent of India’s healthcare infrastructure
IT’s like a patient with a long list of underlying pathologies and overt symptoms. To say there’s a crisis in Indian healthcare would be to state a truism: we need sharper points of diagnosis. The private sector covers about 80 percent of India’s healthcare. Its energies, and the capital it infuses to keep things state-of-the-art, are a boon in a resource-scarce country. But must its profiteering instincts get so far ahead of its ethics that it starts showing up like a beeping red line on the monitor?
When the prices of cardiac stents and orthopaedic implants were capped earlier in 2017 after some sustained media focus, it drew attention to the systematic “loot” that had been going on, particularly in corporate hospitals. Now, a spate of tragic deaths—accompanied by unconscionably high bills, often running into lakhs—is pointing to another area of darkness. Three days before Christmas, a police complaint was lodged against a top private hospital in Gurgaon—after 22 days of treatment for dengue and a Rs 16 lakh bill, seven-year-old Shaurya Parmar lay dead. Before that, the case of Adya Singh (also seven, also dengue, also Rs 16 lakh) had already brought a probe against another Gurgaon hospital. Then a newborn was delivered in a plastic packet, erroneously declared dead, by a Delhi hospital. It’s not just about quality not matching costs. Is a routinised way of profiteering—tests and lines of treatment on which patients are often hazy—actually bringing a kind of deadly sloth and uncaring?
This story is from the January 15, 2018 edition of Outlook.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the January 15, 2018 edition of Outlook.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Will Hindutva Survive After 2024?
The idealogy of Hindutva faces a challenge in staying relevant
A Terrific Tragicomedy
Paul Murray's The Bee Sting is a tender and extravagant sketch of apocalypse
Trapped in a Template
In the upcoming election, more than the Congress, the future of the Gandhi family is at stake
IDEOLOGY
Public opinion will never be devoid of ideology: but we shall destroy ourselves without philosophical courage
The Many Kerala Stories
How Kerala responded to the propaganda film The Kerala Story
Movies and a Mirage
Previously portrayed as a peaceful paradise, post-1990s Kashmir in Bollywood has become politicised
Lights, Cinema, Politics
FOR eight months before the 1983 state elections in undivided Andhra Pradesh, a modified green Chevrolet van would travel non-stop, except for the occasional pit stops and food breaks, across the state.
Cut, Copy, Paste
Representation of Muslim characters in Indian cinema has been limited—they are either terrorists or glorified individuals who have no substance other than fixed ideas of patriotism
The Spectre of Eisenstein
Cinema’s real potency to harness the power of enchantment might want to militate against its use as a servile, conformist propaganda vehicle
The Thalaiva Factor
At atime when Bollywood Is churning out propagandist narratives, south cinema, too, has Stories to tell