Privatisation of Healthcare

Although the Indian pharmaceutical industry has played an important role in the development of generic medicines, it is not clear whether drug development, which is dominated by the private sector, is informed of the disease burden and public health priorities. An attempt is made to address this question by juxtaposing the therapeutic focus of the drugs approved for marketing and the new chemical entities in the pipeline with the disease burden across age groups.

In 2007, the Delhi High Court ordered all private hospitals in Delhi having the free treatment condition for economically weaker section patients in their lease deed to provide free treatment to 10% poor inpatients and 25% poor outpatients. This article analyses the monthly reports of “percentage bed occupancy” of the ews beds in 34 private hospitals from 2012–13 to 2015–16. The bed occupancy of 41% hospitals was below 10% and only two hospitals featured more than 30%. A number of loopholes need to be plugged by the custodian of the public properties, which is the state in this case, to ensure that the public partners who are the poor patients are welcomed and provided non-discriminatory health services without any fee.

The Government of Maharashtra had set up a committee to draft the Prevention of Cut Practice in Healthcare Services Act, 2017 to stop cut practice in the medical profession. In the last two decades, there has been rapid commercialisation of medical services which has led to cut-throat competition among doctors to attract patients for higher revenue generation. This article presents the views of doctors about different aspects of cut practice, such as its prevalence, trends and the ways to stop it.

The National Health Policy 2017 makes a case for expanding private sector participation through collaboration. The policy offers little assurance of providing integrated and universal healthcare.

Abolition of any type of user fee and the decision to close private wards in hospitals run by the Delhi government may appear to be small steps. These measures are likely to reduce inequity in health services utilisation while signalling the government's intention to bring about changes for the better in health outcomes.