Nobody likes to go to a hospital, that’s something obvious unless you have to visit someone, unless you really don’t have a choice like if you are a doctor or a nurse or some lab technician. But I have realized over the past couple of months in the midst of difficult circumstances that these are the places that have become money spinners. The topic of discussion here are the private hospitals, the ones that are run as corporate entities.
The objective of any corporate entity is profit. They exist for profit, no two ways about that. But then hospitals are not the same as a company providing hospitality services; or a company selling mobile phones. They have to cater to patients, sick people, sometimes very sick people who could be as dejected, as much as their families are in a state of financial and emotional turmoil due to their sickness.
The point am trying to make here is that the profit motive of the corporate hospitals is fine but they have to be considerate keeping in mind the possibly distressed condition of the patients and the extreme anguish caused to their families.
The state of public health care system in India is well known. It’s in pretty bad shape and caters mostly to patients who are from the lower rung of the society who simply cannot afford even a single day’s expenditure in an average private hospital. Needless to say most government hospitals in the country are over crowded and are run in such a manner that an average educated Indian with an average salary would think many times before stepping into one. The scenario is well set for privately run hospitals to flourish in our country.
Am not going to bore people with details of my personal tragedy but here is an outline of what happened-My grandmother had a heart attack and she was admitted to a well known private hospital. It was a mild attack and a first one and the doctors very clearly said surgery was ruled out considering the old age of the patient. One day she actually had to be revived -the docs keep massaging and pressing the chest till the heart started beating again. She was kept in the ICU for a couple of weeks and in 30 days time since she was admitted to the hospital, Rs.3,00,000 literally flew out of the door. True, medical care in India is expensive but then the average cost here comes to Rs.10,000 a day and there was not even a surgery involved here. UNBELIEVABLE. This was when I realized something:
1. A hospital is one place where you are utterly helpless especially if your near and dear is admitted to one for you can never question them about any of their procedures as to why so many medicines have to be bought or why a patient has to remain in ICU for weeks together. You can only trust them with your loved one.
2. Yes. They do take good care of the patients. The doctors do explain the illness and complications involved but at the end of the day you are left with a HUGE bill.A ridiculously huge one. When a huge bill is levied at a different place say a restaurant or at any other place you get to read it, question the logics of it. But in a hospital you can never ever do that. If the doctor’s fees come to Rs. 50,000 you can only gape at it. You nevertheless have to pay it.
3. Do they look at this as an opportunity to skim a nice profit by charging atrociously? This is debatable.
But looking at the numbers mentioned above I don’t think the debate would last long. I would certainly love to have a look these companies oops hospitals Balance sheets. They would make an interesting study. Also there is something more interesting here:
1. It is estimated that by 2025, India will be number one in the world (Now now pl read on fully) with the maximum number of people with diabetes. At the moment the number is 30 million people with diabetes.
2. Researchers say India, a country with more than one billion people, will likely account for 60 per cent of heart disease patients worldwide, by 2010.
3. According to WHO studies there are more than 24 lakh cancer cases in India and India will have 8 lakh new cancer cases every year.
4. With the increasingly changing life style of young Indians especially in the IT and ITES sectors ,there would be a spurt in the lifestyle diseases-chronic diseases like heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and respiratory infections - which are ailments of long duration and slow progression.
If you have read till here what are you waiting for now. Go ahead and invest in the scrips of these corporate hospitals. If they come out with an IPO pounce on it for you know the analysis now. The ‘fundamentals’ are pretty strong and there is enormous potential for ‘growth’ in the future and the ‘business model’ if I can call it that would most certainly lead to increased ‘profitability’.
Am not a communist and profit making and all is fine (I work for a prominent private concern as well) but at what cost. This is thoroughly sickening.
