A Substantive Account of Medical Malpractice in India

Those who have doubts about the extent of corruption and medical malpractice in India, this book can offer a few revelations. This volume penned by 41 leading medical and other experts across India constitutes an internal, whistle-blowing critique of the very extensive and intensive spread of medical malpractice in India. Among the authors and editors, majority are doctors and leaders in their respective specialities, reputed for their honesty and integrity. They have decided to publicise various medical malpractices occurring in India as they have painfully seen from closer quarters. Other doctors as readers should not ignore the book merely because the title is unnecessarily provocative.

One attractive feature of the book is the foreword by Amartya Sen. Predictably, before getting into the issue of medical corruption, he appropriately refers to the broader canvas of overall dismal failure in the field of health and healthcare in India, because of the neglect of public health, and of primary healthcare. However, coming from a Nobel laureate who has been writing extensively for the lay people, the foreword is a little disappointing. When a layperson would read Sen’s comment: “India spends a much lower proportion of its national income on healthcare than do many other nations with comparable achievements in economic development,” they may not realise that this criticism is about low proportion of government expenditure on health and not about the total expenditure on healthcare, private and public included.