Slapped by Expensive Healthcare!

BrkDSilence ^ | BrkDSilence

[ND23]

How expensive is the healthcare in India? This question paddled in my head when I saw someone close doing some out-of-pocket spending of his income to protect his 12 weeks premature baby boy.

After I received a call of this unprecedented happening in their life, I went to the hospital and was completely wacked by the state of affairs of health in my country. I am not exactly aware of the amount of money spent by the Indian Government for such unexpected happenings but I could sense the mounting cost of diagnosis, medicines and hospitalisation.

I came to know when I stepped in the private hospital, where the baby was kept in the I.C.U., that when the couple had asked the doctors of the city government hospital to conduct the unexpected delivery, the couple encountered a straight refusal. The reason provided by them was that there was no available space or the required machinery to protect the six-month old baby.

[Dallas59]

With a billion people and dead bodies floating in the river and cows all over the place....what a nightmare.

[RightOnTheBorder]

Pretty sad story but nothing more than what I would expect from government run healthcare. The greedy government was happy to take in tax dollars and provide no service and the private hospital was expensive (likely more expensive than necessary due to govt. interference) but able to save the mother and child. The lesson should be that those who would force you into government healthcare are basically murderers.

[PAR35]

Welcome to FR, and congratulations on your second post.

Not every hospital is equipped with neo-natal intensive care units (NICU). Nor would it make economic sense.

It would be nice if the story provided some precise information as to how far along the pregnancy actually was, as a single week can make a tremendous difference at that point. See chart below.

http://miscarriage.about.com/od/pregnancyafterloss/a/prematurebirth.htm

[ND23]

Thank You!
I would be pouring in some thoughts about this instance in future as the baby is still in NICU. I would also be poring through the data of healthcare of premature babies so that I can provide a substantial piece of information.

[PAR35]

I can’t comment on the situation in India, but I am more familiar with that in the US. I’ve known parents who lost a child that could have probably been saved at a top tier medical center, and I’ve known parents whose children lived because they were at such a center. But the costs were several hundred thousand. Ultimately, the costs are such that the parents can’t pay them, so the issue then becomes how to distribute those costs on society.

But certainly equipping every community hospital is not practical nor efficient.