Private health sector in India: Is private health care at the cost of public health care?

doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7528.1338-c

BMJ 2005;331:1338-1339 (3 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7528.1338-c

Letter

Private health sector in India

Is private health care at the cost of public health care?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Sengupta and Nundy's editorial makes good reading,but I do not see any connection between the burgeoning privatehealthcare sector in India and the abysmal condition of thegovernment healthcare system.¹

To say that private healthcare is growing at the cost of publichealth care is unfair. While public spending on health carehas been dropping, during the first half of the 1990s, India'sdefence budget grew at 1.5% yearly in real terms. Since 1996-7,the defence budget has been growing at 10% yearly in real terms.²Would it not be appropriate to say that defence spending isgrowing at the cost of public health care?

Patients from other countries and patients from eastern Indiago to south India for treatment at private institutions sincethese are perceived to offer better treatment than their counterpartsin eastern India. The levying of a tax on hospital bills offoreign . . . [Full text of this article]

Amitava Bose, hospital consultant, facility and equipment planning

22 H Block, New Alipore, Kolkata 700053, India bose.amitava@gmail.com