Private health sector in India: Single level health care is the only solution

doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7528.1339

BMJ 2005;331:1339 (3 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7528.1339

Letter

Private health sector in India

Single level health care is the only solution

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

EDITOR—The editorial by Sengupta and Nundy on the privatehealth sector in India raises interesting issues.^1
2 Peoplewho still believe in the much discredited "trickle down" effectsof money supply need to know that the Indian system rarely allowsthe government to collect legitimate taxes from rich and privilegedpeople. Therefore and especially, there cannot be even the smallesthope of any public good coming of medical tourism in India,no matter how profitable it might be to the service providers.

The fact that the state medical machinery so miserably failsin India—and similar systems do only marginally betterin the United Kingdom or the United States—has to do withthe simple reality that the wealthy and the influential sectionsof the public have no interest in it. In the absence of thecountry's powerful folks' direct dependence on a healthy publicsystem there can be only the . . . [Full text of this article]

Shyamal Bagchee, professor

University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada T6G 2E5 sbagchee@ualberta.ca