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EDITOR'S CHOICE: Tony Delamothe What counts? BMJ 2008; 336: 0 [Full text]

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Health Consumerism Vs Medical Consumerism

BM Hegde   (2 February 2008)

Health Consumerism Vs Medical Consumerism 2 February 2008
BM Hegde, Editor in Chief, Journal of the Science of Healing Outcomes Mangalore 575 004 Send response to journal: Re: Health Consumerism Vs Medical Consumerism	Dear Tony, Good issue with excellent articles and your comments are superb! I wonder if India would be able to benefit from the Netherlands experience to get every pregnant woman to deliver in the hospital. I couldn't agree more with Des Spence's condemnation of the privatization of medical care in the developing countries. It has become truly "consumerism hell." Recent studies have shown that the poor man's greatest debt burden, resulting in a spate of suicides by farmers in some parts of India, is from the huge hospital bills! I have deliberately removed the word "health" from Spence's phrase to emphasize the need to make it clear that doctors and hospitals have very little to do with society's health. The latter depends on clean drinking water, housing, good food, sanitary facilities, economic empowerment of the masses and education. This might not impress people in the UK but one will understand that in the context of the so called third world. Only 0.2% poor people use Government hospitals in many northern States in India while the most advanced State of Kerala only 2.8% use the government facilities! Our spending on private care is a whopping 78% and our spending on public care is very, very low. This is the best industry now and every corporate house is eyeing hospital "business" as the best. Bernard Mandeville described corporate business is that which exists for profit only; philanthropy has no place there. One could only shudder to think of the day when corporate hospitals will be looking for more illnesses in society for them to get better profits. Isn't this worse than "medical consumerism hell"? Yours ever, bmhegde Competing interests: None declared Competing interests: None declared