Social inequalities reflected in virus care
TREATMENT OPTIONS SEEN AS UNEQUAL AS THE COUNTRY
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People wait in a queue for Covid-19 test at a government hospital in New Delhi. Some worry that crowded wards at public hospitals will make them sicker than if they stayed home.
When Pradeep Kumar’s wife was admitted to a state-run hospital in Delhi for treatment of Covid-19, it took two days before she was able to see a doctor.
“There are six other women in her room and everyone is frustrated,” he said outside New Delhi’s LNJP Hospital. “They’re behaving like they’re leprosy patients.”
Kumar’s wife had just given birth when she found out she had the virus. She was told she would have to change hospitals and be admitted at one set up to handle coronavirus patients, a process that took hours.
Though India’s leaders have promised coronavirus testing and care for all who need it, regardless of income, treatment options are as stratified and unequal as the country itself.
Care ranges from crowded wards at public hospitals that some worry will make them sicker than if they stayed home to spacious suites at private hospitals that only the wealthy can afford.
Under India’s health care system, everyone should be able to receive either free or highly subsidised care at those public hospitals depending on their income. But the system has been chronically underfunded, meaning government hospitals are overburdened and patients often face days-long waits for even basic treatments.
World Health Organisation
data shows that India’s government spent $63 (Dh231) per person on health care for its 1.3 billion people in 2016. By comparison, China spent $398 for each of its 1.4 billion people in 2016, according to the WHO.
Though India has managed to halve its poverty rate over the past 15 years, some 176 million people still live on less than $1.90 a day, and experts say the pandemic is shining a spotlight on the country’s vast inequalities in everything from employment rights to health care.
Money matters
At RML Hospital in New Delhi, a state-run facility that offers free Covid-19 tests, dozens of people waiting on a recent day to be registered for a test stood in line or lay on metal benches shaded by a green tarp in scorching summer heat.
A personal trainer who fears he has the coronavirus, Manoj
Kumar was lined up outside another public hospital just waiting to get in. He said he saw some people give the guards money in order to skip the line.
“The rich people get their work done pretty easily,” he said. “People who don’t have money for the guards have to stand in line for multiple hours.”
Private hospitals generally uphold higher standards of care, but most people can’t afford it. At Max, one of India’s biggest private hospital chains, daily rates for coronavirus treatment range from about Rs25,000 (Dh1,215) for a bed in the general ward to Rs72,000 for a bed in the ICU with a ventilator.
Delhi state’s health minister, Satyendar Jain, checked into a government-run hospital earlier this month after testing positive for Covid-19, but he transferred to a Max hospital when his condition became critical.