How to Improve Access to Healthcare
An interesting viewpoint on new ways of improving access to healthcare from Dr U.N.Nair, Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine, Annamalai University. He can be reached at unnair@yahoo.com
“Health crisis affects a large number of people in the third world. It is now fairly accepted that for people who pay from pocket the expenses on medical care tend to become impoverished with each episode of health crises. And for poor people and lower middle class, the chances of attracting diseases tend to remain high due to situational and environmental impacts.
The typically understood model of health care is the medical care of diseases model, where professional time and resources are spent on finding diagnoses, planning high cost treatments and tertiary care referrals. Even Governments and policy makers have this in mind when they sit down to spend the health allocation. With the advent of super specialty and corporate hospitals and medical tourism a situation has come where medical treatment is no longer affordable to one who has to pay from one’s pocket.
Alternative strategies are surely thought of by health workers and NGOs. Most of the evolving models seek to establish community level health facilities that subsidize cost as well as economize expenses on diagnostic procedures (eg., investigations). Or they concentrate on sensitizing the public health system.
While these are essential initiatives that are necessary other models ought to be thought of if they are sustainable:
1) Participatory cost reduction steps in medical care at government and private sector health institutions
2) Protocol based investigations and treatment planning for patients who pay from pocket
3) Free and unrestricted access to medical documents to consumers
4) Quality assurance reforms in health care institutions especially the primary and secondary level centres where poorer patients seek care from
These four areas are to covered as a single package and should include both public and private health institutions. This might be thought of as a useful addition to the existing models of community health initiatives.”
“Health crisis affects a large number of people in the third world. It is now fairly accepted that for people who pay from pocket the expenses on medical care tend to become impoverished with each episode of health crises. And for poor people and lower middle class, the chances of attracting diseases tend to remain high due to situational and environmental impacts.
The typically understood model of health care is the medical care of diseases model, where professional time and resources are spent on finding diagnoses, planning high cost treatments and tertiary care referrals. Even Governments and policy makers have this in mind when they sit down to spend the health allocation. With the advent of super specialty and corporate hospitals and medical tourism a situation has come where medical treatment is no longer affordable to one who has to pay from one’s pocket.
Alternative strategies are surely thought of by health workers and NGOs. Most of the evolving models seek to establish community level health facilities that subsidize cost as well as economize expenses on diagnostic procedures (eg., investigations). Or they concentrate on sensitizing the public health system.
While these are essential initiatives that are necessary other models ought to be thought of if they are sustainable:
1) Participatory cost reduction steps in medical care at government and private sector health institutions
2) Protocol based investigations and treatment planning for patients who pay from pocket
3) Free and unrestricted access to medical documents to consumers
4) Quality assurance reforms in health care institutions especially the primary and secondary level centres where poorer patients seek care from
These four areas are to covered as a single package and should include both public and private health institutions. This might be thought of as a useful addition to the existing models of community health initiatives.”
posted by Satya at 10:58 AM
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