{"id":264826,"date":"2023-10-17T19:56:53","date_gmt":"2023-10-17T14:26:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/?p=264826"},"modified":"2023-10-17T19:56:53","modified_gmt":"2023-10-17T14:26:53","slug":"palliative-care-a-way-to-reduce-financial-distress-for-people-with-life-limiting-diseases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/palliative-care-a-way-to-reduce-financial-distress-for-people-with-life-limiting-diseases\/","title":{"rendered":"Palliative care, a way to reduce financial distress for people with life limiting diseases"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source: <\/strong>This post has been created based on the article \u201cPalliative care, a way to reduce financial distress for people with life limiting diseases\u201d <\/strong>published in The Hindu <\/strong>on 17th<\/sup> October 2023.<\/strong><\/p>\n

UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper 2 Social Justice \u2014 Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector\/Services relating to\u00a0Health.<\/strong><\/p>\n

News:\u00a0<\/strong>This article discusses the positives of incorporating palliative care in India\u2019s healthcare ecosystem. It also highlights the challenges in the palliative care sector in India.<\/p>\n

What are the implications of the rising cost of healthcare in India?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

With only 1.35%<\/strong> of GDP being spent on government health services, patients bear most of the health expenses. Many Indians are either a hospital bill away from poverty or too poor to access healthcare.
\nIt is estimated that nearly 5.5 crore people fall below the poverty line every year<\/strong> due to out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s non-communicable disease burden<\/strong> is on the rise. This will push more and more people into poverty as they require lifelong treatment and periodic health check-ups.<\/p>\n

This rising cost often leads to bankruptcy, decreased treatment satisfaction, foregoing or delays in seeking further medical care, poor quality of life, and poor survival.<\/p>\n

Even if treatment is free in govt hospitals, the cost of travel<\/strong>, purchasing medicines<\/strong> that are out of stock in govt pharmacies, and loss of wages<\/strong> due to the absence from work contribute to the financial burden.<\/p>\n

Often assets have to be sold-off and education of children in the family stopped to cope with the financial burden.<\/p>\n

What is palliative care?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Palliative care<\/strong> is a branch of medicine that looks at improving the quality of life of those having life-limiting illnesses like cancers, end-stage kidney disease, debilitating brain disorders, complications of diabetes, and heart disease among others.<\/p>\n

It focuses on alleviating<\/strong> uncontrolled symptoms <\/strong>of the incurable illnesses mentioned above.<\/p>\n

It takes into consideration not just the physical dimension of health but also looks at the social and economic realities<\/strong> of the patient and the family.<\/p>\n

Vocational rehabilitation<\/strong> and social reintegration<\/strong> are crucial elements of palliative care.<\/p>\n

What are the issues with palliative care in India?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

These factors have resulted in poor demand and poor access to palliative care in India:<\/p>\n

1) Low awareness levels:<\/strong> regarding palliative care in India, both among healthcare workers and the general public.<\/p>\n

2) Currently, palliative care is not covered under most insurance schemes<\/strong> in India.<\/p>\n

3) Unplanned and low funding levels<\/strong> has also been a barrier to palliative care services. This prevents long-term planning.<\/p>\n

4) Palliative care from primary<\/strong> and secondary health centres<\/strong> is far from being achieved.<\/p>\n

5) The private healthcare sector has neglected<\/strong> it.<\/p>\n

What should be the way forward?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

1) Early initiation of palliative care in patients has been shown to reduce health expenditure by up to 25%.<\/strong> For instance, home-based palliative care<\/strong> can reduce the travelling costs of patients. Hence, palliative care should be incorporated into the Indian healthcare system.<\/p>\n

2) Instead of its current mode of occasional annual budgeting, the National Program for Palliative Care must be consistently funded<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

3) Palliative care provisions will help in generating goodwill<\/strong> for corporate hospitals, and will also improve the<\/strong> utilisation of beds<\/strong>, and ultimately help corporate hospitals in generating wealth. Private healthcare providers should prioritise it.<\/p>\n

India is becoming the \u201cEpicentre for non-communicable diseases\u201d<\/strong>. It is the moral obligation <\/strong>of the health system to take care of people, especially when they are suffering from life-long illnesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: This post has been created based on the article \u201cPalliative care, a way to reduce financial distress for people with life limiting diseases\u201d published in The Hindu on 17th October 2023. UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper 2 Social Justice \u2014 Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector\/Services relating to\u00a0Health. News:\u00a0This article discusses… Continue reading Palliative care, a way to reduce financial distress for people with life limiting diseases<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,8131,10498],"class_list":["post-264826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-social-issues","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":102,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1698431543},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}