Unhealthy truths about private medicine

It isa truth universally acknowledged that seeking private medical care in India, much like in countries that rely heavily on corporatised healthcare, can be deeply injurious to one’s financial health.

- NEHA BHATT

This is hardly surprising in a system where government health expenditure remains below 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), while a significant share of total health spending is paid out of pocket by patients desperate to beat illness.

As a society, we have become so accustomed to shelling out large sums of money for healthcare that few protest or ask questions. Meanwhile, the public-private partnership (PPP) model is only becoming more pervasive, extending its influence into medical education as well.

Games Hospitals Play: Decoding Your Private Healthcare Experience, by Abantika Ghosh, a health journalist and public policy professional, isa call to action for everyone who believes health should not be treated as a commodity.

We live in a time when nearly every hospital visit isa reminder that the side-effects of inflated bills are often long-term, with stories of patients reeling under medical debt crushingly common, and no cure in sight. Itis this all-too-familiar insecurity that people feel about private hospitals that inspired the book, Ms Ghosh writes.

We know that India operates ina complex space where public health infrastructure is unable to keep pace with its population, and the wide leash given to private players to fill that void, despite repeated calls for stronger regulation, has sent costs spiralling out of control. The Covid-19 pandemic exposed this reality even more starkly.