Health Care Provisions and their Accessibility to People: A Sociological Study in an Urban City of India
Author: Mahua Patra, mahuapatra1@gmail.com
Department: Sociology
University: University of Kalyani, India
Supervisor: Prof. Partha Sarathi De
Year of completion: 2018
Language of dissertation: English
Keywords:
Accessibility
, Developing Country
, Healthcare
, Urban
Areas of Research:
Health
, Regional and Urban Development
, Social Classes and Social Movements
Abstract
People in the urban area of developing countries are facing huge challenges in accessing healthcare even though the existence of lots of healthcare provisions. This study tried to understand the actual situation of healthcare accessibility by the people of urban area of one of the developing countries, India and tried to identify the access barriers. The study adopted a mixed method approach and convergent parallel design with pragmatic worldview. In this cross-sectional study, comprised both slum and non-slum area,379 households having in-patient experience within the last one year in April 2017 to September 2017 have been selected as respondents through random sampling method for face to face interviews with semi-structured schedule from the selected wards of Kolkata Municipal Corporation of West Bengal state. Ten cases are also selected through 'purposive sampling' method for more intensive introspection. Researcher analysed ‘Health Seeking Behavior’ to understand healthcare situation. The bi-nominal logistic regression has been used in this study to search the best fitting model to pronounce the relationship between the dependent variable (health seeking behavior) and a set of independent (‘socio-economic background’ of the respondents, ‘healthcare access situation’ and ‘quality of treatment’) variables. In case of utilization of health care facility waiting time to start treatment, easy admission, bed availability, facilitator availing, expected treatment, added service, additional service during treatment in the facility significantly influence the health seeking behavior and choice of healthcare facility. High out of pocket expenditure for treatment (both direct and indirect cost) is a prime access barrier. But the unique finding from the case studies revealed that sufficient money to afford healthcare facility did not provide guarantee of the proper treatment. Rather recommendation from reputed doctor, influential person was the essential matter to be ensured about better treatment. This study added two variables ‘Man-day Loss’ and ‘Role of Facilitator’ to the Anderson’s (1974) Framework for the Study of Access to Medical Care. The research added dis-aggregated primary data to world data set and specific direction to the policy maker to minimize the problem of healthcare accessibility in urban area of developing countries.
