India - Health care costs pushing Indians below poverty line, WHO experts say

New Delhi (The Statesman/ANN) - Out-of-pocket spending of their income on medicines and health care services due to rising cost of diagnosis, medicines and hospitalisation will push millions of Indians (about 3.2 per cent) below the poverty line, said World Health Organisation (WHO) experts on Tuesday.

More than 40 per cent of low-income families in India have to borrow money from outside the family to meet their health care costs, revealed a survey conducted by the Indian Institute of Population Sciences and WHO in six states. The study found that 16 per cent families had been pushed below the poverty line by this trend.

A majority of Indians spend around 70 per cent of their income on medicines and health care, compared to 30-40 per cent in other Asian countries like Sri Lanka, said WHO regional advisor Kathleen A Halloway, at Delhi Society for Promotion of Rational Use of Drugs (DSPRUD) and WHO Interactive Session on "Medication Safety in Hospitals".

"The problem is that they still suffer from infectious diseases in the absence of best quality of drugs and health care facilities. Due to out-of-pocket spending of their income in medicines and health care services, about 3.2 per cent of India's population will fall below the poverty line (BPL)," Halloway said.

The WHO regional advisor stressed the need for an effective monitoring system in India and expressed her concern on the lack of Drugs and Therapeutics Committee (DTC) and Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee (PTC) in Indian hospitals despite WHO's last 10 years of committed efforts in this direction.

While spending has been soaring, experts said the issue of poor quality healthcare remains neglected.

"The MCI (Medical Council of India) has received many complaints on the side-effects of drugs prescribed by doctors. Since there is less awareness among rural community about the medical council, majority of complaints received are from cities only," said MCI secretary Sangeeta Sharma.

Public hospitals in India have grievance redressal committees in place, but not many people know about approaching the MCI, Sharma added.

According to Delhi Society for Promotion of Rational Use of Drugs (DSPRUD) chief,R Parmeswar, in USA alone, over 98,000 people died in the past due to medication error cases and one can imagine the medication errors cases in India, where DTC/PTCs are not at all functioning well compared to USA and EU countries. These countries have now taken enough preventive measures to avoid any adverse drug reactions and medication errors.

Usha Gupta of Fortis Hospital said that DSPRUD has been promoting concept of DTC/PTC in India since its inception and has organised two such specialised training programmes under the aegis of WHO but still not much progress has been made in the direction.

News Desk in New Delhi/The Statesman | ANN

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