Why Most People Shy from Public Hospitals? (A 5 minute Read ...)

"Kitne aadmi thay".

Every person out there knows this very famous dialogue of the movie Sholay. And why should they not know?

This dialogue was said by one of the greatest villains of Bollywood, Gabbar - the fearsome dacoit whose rage was such that the mothers used to put their babies to sleep by saying "Gabbar aa jayega".Such was the havoc caused by dacoits at that time.They used to threaten and rob money from people at gunpoint. We can say that things haven't changed since then, they are just a bit different. Now the dacoity is still done, just the way of threatening is changed. Earlier the looting was carried out by robbers, and today this task is done by the disquieting bills of our private hospitals. And the irony is we still prefer going to private hospitals to spending a huge amount of money rather than seeking government hospitals. Are those money which a middle class man had saved for the betterment of his future useless for him, how is he ready to invest in a fancy prize to such private hospitals . Or why do a normal family men bargain in a shop just for 20-30 Rs will be ready to burn a hole in his pocket just to get treatment in private clinics. Does our greed for our better health is wrong ?

Where the problem lies actually??

And whom to blame for this scenario.??

It all boils down to the fact of carelessness on the part of the government.
Meanwhile, one cannot deny the fact that in this fast-paced world like today, who has the time to stand in lines for hours and wait for your turn only to be treated in a government hospital with minimal facilities?

If one is expecting that a middle class man after doing his 10 hours restless job, and listening his wife and children complaining about not giving time to them, will walk down in a government hospital for making out normal x ray by wasting his hours for getting the OPD done and stand in the queue again for hours for his normal check up. So one should stop having any expectations, those are nothing but imagination, a totally impractical scene.

There is no doubt that private hospitals are expensive and attract payments to an extent of four times as compared to the treatment provided by government hospitals. But the way of treatment really differs a lot that unwillingly a person is left with no option than going to private clinics.

Reports in the Hindustan Times talked about a person who had to sell his farmland to get his father diagnosed for cancer in a private hospital after the required technical and material expertise was not present in a government hospital. It gave him no choice but to seek help from a private one even when he couldn’t afford it.

This was just an example which was highlighted, yet there are many pages that lie down the cover. 

No person willingly burns his own finger, the situation makes him do this.

In fact, if we had adequate quality government hospitals in this country, we wouldn’t be so obsessed with private hospitals. They aren’t meant to serve the masses in any case. But when one has government hospitals that are overcrowded, dirty, and poorly provisioned, people feel helpless and have no choice but to turn to expensive private healthcare.

The recent corona positive patient in new Delhi slammed the government hospital for their hospitality, complaining about the unhygienic environment and the leniency of the staff members.
Although the private hospitals are costly, at least they have all the facilities which make the government something to ponder about.

One of the reasons why most of us shy from public hospitals was the lack of staff, long queues for appointment and obsolete equipments.

As far as better facilities, doctors and equipments are concerned, private hospitals always seem to surpass the government hospitals.
Due to such genuine issues, a poor person is compelled to go to a private one rather than go to affordable government hospitals.

There’s no denying the fact that private hospitals today have become increasingly corporatised. But when did all this begin.Till 1990 they were mainly government hospitals which were providing healthcare services to the masses,& there were very few private hospitals. In that era, everyone, including politicians & bureaucrats, used to go to government hospitals for healthcare needs.

Then something suddenly changed, Corporate hospitals entered the scene. We became confused between socialism & capitalism. Our government started running away from its responsibility of providing quality free education & free healthcare to the masses.Skip about the other facilities like improved education, that sometimes seems we are crying for the moon, but at least we deserve a good medical facilities, which i think is the primary responsibility of the government.

It is our own government that encouraged the growth of private healthcare by neglecting government hospitals & our neighbourhood dispensaries & health centres. The government stopped investing in healthcare & our centres of excellence started coming under stress & deteriorating.

Somewhere the government is responsible for this mess formed in the health care system.

The initiative of corporates in healthcare, which stepped in to fill the vacuum created by failing & falling standards of government healthcare infrastructure to fulfil the health need & aspirations of quality conscious new rich or affording class.

The population kept on growing, but a proportionate increase in government hospital beds was not made. Staffing was not increased, infrastructure was not upgraded. And the consequence is those government hospitals started being identified as poorly managed & equipped facilities, where even the poorest are scared to go.

Hospitals are no longer seen as places of hope but as houses of despair and gloom.
Actually, we are in a catch 22 situation, we are not ready to go to government hospitals but finding it difficult to afford private healthcare.

We wanted five-star facilities in hospitals while it is beyond our means.

Now the situation is, the government is running away from its responsibility of providing free healthcare of quality to the masses. On the surface, it shows that it is concerned about the public but, on the other hand, actually responsible for the mess.

Of course, mismanagement at MTNL meant you wouldn’t have a phone, and at Air India it would mean your flight would be delayed. When things are bungled up in a hospital, you can die, and this part is really unbearable.This is why nobody acted on something as basic as oxygen in Gorakhpur, the incident which still gives us goosebumps. Ideally, the oxygen supplier should be on autoplay. The hospital should also have an oxygen inventory system. Any meaningful drops should trigger an order, with automatic payments. Every hospital should have a line of credit for pre-approved emergency items. These are fairly obvious, implementable things. However, who will do this? Anybody suggesting so won’t get a raise or a promotion or even recognition. Also who cares about a normal individual, unless there's a famous recognizable personality, even avoid showing their sympathy.
Nothing can lessen the pain of the people who lost their kids. What we can hope is to learn lessons from this horrible incident and reform our healthcare system so Gorakhpur never, ever happens again.

Whether it’s incentivising the medical treatment in any way or using the medical expenditure in the right way is something that needs to be done better.

It is high time that the government should immediately nationalise healthcare services in India.
The country needs good doctors & excellent health services too. Doctors can't provide it at a cheap rate because it doesn't come cheap. Like every product, services have also cost, but it looks that the cost is unaffordable for most of us.

This environment of distrust between the general public & Medical profession should end. The nation needs its doctors, they're the best.