Is The Indian Farmer , Karna- Sacrificing Warrior? - Impact of corporate health care on farmers

Is The Indian Farmer , Karna- Sacrificing Warrior? - Impact of corporate health care on farmers

Effect of Corporate Health Care on Rural India:  

Corporate Education acts as slow poison on farmers, whereas corporate health care is instant killer.

Successive Governments created reasonably good infrastructure in villages with primary health centres, Hospitals. Striking imbalances will be there in terms of coverage. The  roadside villages, constituencies represented by heavy weights will be over saturated and still find uncovered villages in remote & backward areas. If the top down approach is followed, the country could have reached saturation point and budget can be better utilized for maintenance. Similar gaps will be observed in staffing. RTI tool shall be used to balance these imbalances rather than focusing on individual transfers, pay scales etc.

Like in education, corporates entered health sector in big way and multispecialty hospitals mushroomed initially in bigger cities and now spreading into small towns and even high potential villages. There are hospitals paying lease rentals in crores/month, imagine the type of revenues they project and target to get decent ROI.

Earlier the village health care system is dominated by RMPs, Naturopathy. For deliveries and minor  operations,  PHCs and  doctor owned nursing homes in nearby towns are popular. For example in Coastal Andhra - Tenali, Repalle, Gudivada, Vyurru, Bhimavaram, Tanuku, Ramachandrapuram etc  are major health care centres. Very few cases were referred to Guntur, Vijayawada, Vizag etc. Cost of health care used to be very low and affordable. Rs. 10 to 50/- at village level, Rs. 50 to 1000/- at town level & around Rs. 1000 to 5000/- at city level.

Those days farmers used to be healthy, as they were engaged in physical work, less pollution and least worried. For example my grandmother & father lived over 90 years without any major health issues and almost engaged in farm operations till their death. The present generation farmers worries are complex- debts, children education , market fluctuations, no demand for produce, social pressures etc.  End result is stress, hypertension, heart attacks and what not?   

Unfortunately the entire health care system has become market driven. Village/ town  level institutions came under the influence of corporates & either they became inactive or referrals. The moment one reach local hospital with a compliant, if he looks to be potential customer,  he will be  confuse with complicated questions and refer to some big hospital at Hyderabad or other cities. I was given to understand that the referrals get commission as high as 30%. Corporates are successful in promoting healthcare in such a fashion that getting treatment from a particular hospital is status symbol.  

Even in villages getting admitted into corporate hospitals become a status symbol. If some emergency for elders, the bread winner of the family is under severe social pressure to admit them in corporate hospital end up paying  fat bills. The increase in healthcare bills is much higher than corporate education.  For families with limited income, this is the major expenditure and pushing them into permanent debt trap, sale of asset, suicides etc.   So are  the corporate hospitals are not killer disease for Rural India?  

Government shall mobilize all its resources into most backward areas and partner with NGOs, missionaries, Ramakrishna mission etc and focus on reaching unreached. In potential areas can try PPP model without any extra burden to poor.   

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