Health Care in India

Well now that I've been here for a couple of weeks I'm starting to read and understand more about there the health care system (or lack of) in India. Being at an NGO, most of the services are provided at a very nominal fee or for free. However, outside of the NGO world health care is mostly an out of pocket expense. There is no national health care system or goverment programs. If there are private insurance plans they are expensive and hardly ever provided by your employer. We took my grandmother to the cardiologist the other day. For a 15 minute visit it cost 800 rupees, which is about $20. For a elderly person who doesn't have a job or savings that's a lot. That didn't even cover the 1,000 rupees of medications too. For the lower class population health care comes 3rd or 4th on the list behind eating, shelter, clean water. Even for the educated middle class, health care doesn't seem like a priority. If you don't work you don't get paid, simple. There are government services that offer free health care but for millions those services are kilometers away and often times the wait is 1/2 day or more. If you're in a MegaCity like Ahmedabad those services are closer but again long waits and taking time off of work just isn't worth it. I'm reading a book right now on the health care system here and it's crazy to hear about the lack of government involvement in health care. With a population of 1 billion plus and little over a 1/4 of the population living under the poverty line one would think that is where the priority should be. I'm still learning more about the health care stucture (I don't want to mislead anyone) outside of the NGO world. Next Friday I will be traveling to Baroda to visit LOCOST. They manufacter generic medications and also provide health care information to the general public. Should be interesting to see.

- Margee