What does one illness really cost an Indian family?

A serious illness can affect much more than health. In our weekend special edition of 'YOUR INDIA', Santosh Nair writes about hospital bills, out-of-pocket medical expenses and why one health emergency can force an Indian family to borrow, sell assets or postpone major life plans.

A father is admitted to hospital for a sudden surgery. The family does not ask, at first, how much it will cost. They ask whether he will be fine. The cost question arrives later, usually as a bill, sometimes as a demand for advance payment before treatment even begins.

By the time he is discharged, the family has sold a small piece of land, borrowed from two relatives, and postponed a daughter’s wedding by a year.

This is not a rare story in India. It is closer to a common one.

Read more: What skills will India need next?

According to government survey data from 2022–23, ninety-two per cent of hospitalisation costs in rural India, and seventy-seven per cent in urban India, are still paid directly out of a household’s own pocket, not through insurance or any government scheme. Separately, research published by the One Health Trust estimates that around sixty-three million Indians are pushed into poverty every single year specifically because of health expenses, with the cost of medicines, more than........

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