Health is Wealth- Oh Yes..For the Private Hospitals!!

“If we are unwell, we just wait for death to come and take us”- that’s what a villager had to say in Waifad, a few kilometres away from the town of Wardha. Many in this region of Vidarbha have simply stopped seeking medical assistance as they can no longer afford health care.

Health, according to Mr. Kishore Tiwari, Head of Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti is the second fastest component of rural family debt.

The adage that Health is Wealth certainly doesn’t apply in this region of Maharashtra, but surely can be applied to the private health care institutions which are minting money. Says Saritha of Waifad village of the same district, “ If we fall ill, we are forced to go to the private hospitals where we are asked to undergo costly tests and we are in no position to afford this”.

Government apathy is very evident in this region. The lack of facilities in the Primary Health Care center at these villages is leaving the villagers at the mercy of the private nursing homes. The Primary Health Care Center in Waifad has limited resources. There is just one doctor in the PHC, with the other position lying vacant since the time the PHC has been set up. According to Dr. Shwetha Talwar, Medical officer (MO) at this PHC, the government doesn’t even attempt to fill up the vacant posts of an Assistant Medical Officer (AMO) and sanitary workers. The PHC lacks all the basic facilities, with medicines being sent to the center only once a month or sometimes once in two months. There is no stock of anti-rabies vaccination and anti-venom here and the village has reported 4 snake bite fatalities in 2 months. Fatalities that could be avoided. Maternal health care is not given priority and often women give birth in their homes with the help of midwives because of the absence of the doctor in the village. “My daughter died due to excessive bleeding during child birth. She could have been saved if only the doctor had been at the PHC” says Chardi another farmer.

Last year, thousands of farmers in Vidarbha had to borrow money from private lenders or mortgage land to doctors due to an outbreak of chikun gunya. And the doctor denied any outbreak of chikun gunya in this village.

In Waifad, Gopal Yadav has mortgaged his already scarce land to pay off hospital bills. “A day in a private hospital in Wardha cost me Rs 40,000. I was made to undergo all kinds of tests without being informed of the cost”. He had to let go of 9 acres of land for repaying this bill. When asked why he didn’t go to the civil hospital, he says he was referred to the civil hospital that again referred him to a private hospital. Dr. Shwetha Talwar confirmed this statement by saying that the civil hospital is not equipped enough to handle serious health issues.

Another farmer Vishwanath Jade spent close to Rs 70,000 when he had to undergo a spinal operation. His eight member family depending on just 4 acres of land was sent into a deep economic crisis. He has his own provision store in the village and is still in the process of repaying the debt.

The situation is much the same in every village. In Bhudumri, in Yavatmal District, the nearest PHC is 12 kilometres away. This village hardly has any public transport reaching it and villagers have to walk for a distance of 4-5 kilometres to reach the nearest main road to access transport. Often, it’s the ‘anganwadi’ workers and midwives in case of deliveries who come to rescue of the women in these villages. According to the villagers at Bhudumri, a Help Age India van comes every 15 days with a doctor and who at the nominal cost of Rs 2 dispenses his service. In Bhutaipor, a tribal settlement of the Kollam tribe, there are no health care facilities and the nearest PHC is again a few kilometres away. What worsens the absence of health care facility is the complete lack of connectivity of this settlement with the outside world. There are no roads and often the ill die on their way to the hospital and women deliver on the roads.

Each of Vidarbha's 11 districts has a government hospital, and every tehsil, a rural hospital, but most of them are ill-equipped. Besides, the region has a network of close to 400 PHCs, but given the poor efficiency at these primary referral centres, the patients opt for private health care. Many of those PHCs are dysfunctional, or have no doctors, as a result of which the patients often travel to cities like Nagpur for treatment, even if it comes at a premium.

India is considered as one of the hubs for “medical tourism”. And this is perhaps the biggest irony of all. The disparities are only widening between the urban and the rural, with the government turning a blind eye to those in need.