India's failing health system hits women hardest
State-run hospitals often deny services to poor females, leading to unnecessary deaths.
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Srinagar:
The snowy night of Jan. 17 was a long one for 36-year-old Suraiya
Bano. The pregnant woman, in labor, had been turned away by three
hospitals in India's Jammu and Kashmir state, forcing her to give birth
by a roadside.
The baby died a few minutes later in the freezing conditions, her 42-year-old husband Wazir Ahmad said.
Earlier
that evening Ahmad had carried his wife on his shoulders along a dark,
snow-covered road from their remote Moori hamlet to a hospital three
kilometers away. She was complaining of pain.
Doctors asked him
to take her to the main Kupwara district hospital and arranged a
vehicle. There he was asked to take her to Kashmir's main maternity
hospital in the summer state capital Srinagar, 62 kilometers away.
After
six long hours travelling to the maternity hospital, doctors conducted
some tests before telling the couple to go home, saying the hospital had
no space to accommodate Bano.
"But where can we go and what if
something happens to my wife?" Ahmad asked the doctors. But hospital
staff kicked the couple out.
"In the freezing cold, we spent the
night by a roadside. All of a sudden my wife gave birth to the baby, but
moments later it died," Ahmad said.
Poor Indian women like Bano
being denied health care in state-run facilities remains a big concern,
according to Srinagar-based social activist Dilshana Andrabi.
"The rich can afford private nursing homes, but where can the poor go?" she asked.
Andrabi
told ucanews.com that recent surveys have highlighted how poor women
are on the receiving end of pathetic state-run health services.
The
latest study was released on Jan. 22 by Oxfam, a confederation of 20
independent charitable organizations focusing on the alleviation of
global poverty. It claimed that the poor are denied health care,
exposing them to greater risks of lethal diseases.
"When
governments reduce their expenditure on essential public services such
as education and health care, women and girls are the first ones to lose
out on these services," it said.
Oxfam's executive director
Winnie Byanyima says Indian women and girls from lower castes are the
hardest hit by growing economic disparity.
She said the life
expectancy of a low-caste woman is almost 15 years less than that of an
upper-caste woman as high-quality medical care is only available to
those who have the money to pay for it.
The experience of
52-year-old Tara Devi, from a peasant family in Uttar Pradesh, is a case
in point. Her pregnant daughter died a year ago because the health care
facility in her village was not equipped to conduct a birth by
caesarean section.
She had to wait with her daughter for hours to
get transport to a hospital. "She died on the way along with her baby.
There wasn't anyone responsible. We could complain to no one," Devi
said.
Marginalized communities
Shamaila Khalil, program
coordinator at Oxfam India, told ucanews.com that Dalit women in India
die 14.6 years earlier than those of a higher caste. The health system
for the poor, especially women from marginalized communities, is a
shambles, she said.
"India ranks the third lowest on health on
the World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Index. Instead of investing more
in strengthening the health system to ensure every woman has the care
that she needs, we have seen a reduction in the health budget for
villages, including a dire cut for reproductive and child health,"
Khalil said.
India cannot expect to ensure good health care for
every woman by spending only 1,112 rupees (US$15) per head per annum,
she added.
More needs to be done to provide psychosocial support
and care, particularly in cases related to mental health and
gender-based violence, Khalil told ucanews.com.
Archbishop Felix Toppo of Ranchi says the Indian government has been doing little to address the emerging health care crisis.
The
prelate, who is also a member of the Catholic Bishops' Conference in
India health care commission, told ucanews.com that the government
follows a capitalist policy that ignores the poor.
"Corporate
houses are being built with full vigor. The country needs a
comprehensive health service for the poor, especially women who are
falling prey to the negligent attitude of the government," Archbishop
Toppo said.
India's is the world's sixth-largest economy with
gross domestic product (GDP) of US$2.848 trillion and the third largest
by purchasing power parity. However, poverty is so rampant that about
200 million of its 1.2 billion people have no income for a full meal a
day, studies show.
Government spending on the welfare of the poor
is also too low. For example, according to the latest National Health
Profile, India spends a little over one percent of its GDP on health
care, which is amongst the lowest in the world.
According to the
annual report of the state-run Central Bureau of Health Intelligence,
India spends less than Bhutan (2.5 percent), Sri Lanka (1.6 percent) and
Nepal (1.1 percent) on health care.
When the poor are neglected,
women and girls are the most vulnerable because of Indian society's
general preference for boys to lead families to the next generation,
studies show.
Women's disproportionate poverty, low socioeconomic
status, gender discrimination and reproductive role not only expose
them to diseases but also limit their access to health services,
according to a 2018 research article written by Raju Kowsalya and
Shanmugam Manoharan of Annamalai University.
Domestic violence,
rape and sexual abuse affect women's productivity, autonomy, quality of
life and physical and mental well-being, the article said.
Source:
UCAN
