Sick system?

 

 

Your special issue on health care (TSI, 26 July – 1 August) was highly informative. The editorial by Arindam Chaudhuri was an eye opener. I want to share some of my experience with the readers. Government offices also have a medical bills reimbursement system in place. But they have it in such a way that any genuine person won’t be able to get them. My both parents were in government services and not even once they could get their medical bills reimbursed for only reason that they were genuine! The government system, true to its bureaucratic culture, has set up a long list of procedures and processes for the reimbursement of medical bills of its employees. It has specified a list of medicines that can be approved in case of claims. A genuine seeker of medical bills, will find very few (if at all) of his medicines in this list as doctors prescribe medicines which they consider best based on their knowledge and experience. Hence genuine people end up getting a meagre portion of their actual medical expenses (if they get any). On the other side, some employees who have “studied” these lists, procedures and processes, fall sick to precisely those diseases which demand the medicines in the list of approved medicines. In the system an upright man always suffer. Will the government wake up?

Prof. Nagaraj Shenoy

Bangalore