March 30, 2022
Md Nadimul Haque’s Special mention on the exploitation of patients by corporate hospitals
Sir, out of pocket expenditure as a percentage of total healthcare in India in 2017-18 was found to be 48.8 per cent as per the National Health Accounts Estimate. While this is an improvement and may show an increased uptake of Government hospital facilities, it is still almost half of expenses incurred on health. The National Health Policy estimates that the private sector accounts for 90 per cent of all hospitals (up from eight per cent in 1947), 60 per cent of all beds and 80-85 per cent of all doctors. More than 70 per cent of the patients in rural areas and 80 per cent in urban areas seem to rely on private hospital facilities. Fifty-five million people in India are pushed into poverty each year due to healthcare costs. As of 2019, there are around 43,000 private hospitals in India against
26,000 Government hospitals. The figures of 2017 estimate that the hospital industry is worth 61.79 billion US dollars, is growing at 22 per cent annually and will reach 132 billion US dollars by this year. There is no capping of the charges hospitals can levy on medicines, procedures, tests, etc. As hospitals become corporatized and profit-focussed, there is a need to protect patients and their families from exploitation. On the one hand,people’s faith in our expansive public sector health care system must be revived, on the other, private hospitals must be restricted from profiting at the cost of people.
