Commercialisation of healthcare in India: Covid-19 and beyond.

Abstract

This review of the government's policy during the pandemic flags a number of ethical concerns. The private healthcare sector's treatment of Covid-19 patients has generated mistrust and anger. However, the government has not held it accountable and instead commercialisation has subverted the pandemic needs. Government hospitals weakened by decades of cuts are exposed to internal reorganisation of services through the public-private partnership mechanism, a neoliberal policy that has persisted through the pandemic. There is a need to re-examine the government's policy reliance on scaling-up coverage through the private sector in the pandemic and after.