Abstract
Though the private sector dominates health care in India, it lacks social accountability and effective regulation. Hence, health activists and health-care professionals have adopted a three-pronged approach of mobilising civil society for patients’ rights, networking with ethical doctors towards social responsiveness, and advocating with government for accountable regulation. Health movement strategies adopted mainly in Maharashtra State include organising a regional public hearing in collaboration with the National Human Rights Commission; developing ‘Citizen–Doctor Forums’; mobilising citizens around patients’ rights through a ‘people’s poll’; and campaigning for people-oriented regulatory legislation. A national network of doctors is also being developed to promote ethical health care. Key lessons include: identifying patient rights as popular idiom for citizens’ mobilisation, relevance of ethical voices within the medical profession to complement social accountability of private health care, potential of moving beyond citizen–doctor adversarial positions to promote accountable health-care options, and placing participatory social regulation on the agenda.
Highlights
Accountability for Health Equity: Galvanising a Movement for Universal Health CoverageErica Nelson, Gerald Bloom and Alex Shankland
The quality of care currently delivered by private health-care providers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) remains an issue of concern; two recent Lancet global health series have dealt with this issue in detail
The Lancet series Universal Health Coverage: Markets, Profit, and the Public Good notes that effective regulation of the private medical sector in LMICs is rare, and governments in most such countries lack capacity to provide effective regulation, contributing to serious concerns about the failure of this sector to deliver the expected social benefit (Morgan, Ensor and Waters 2016; Montagu and Goodman 2016; Horton and Clark 2016)
Summary
Gendered Dimensions of Accountability to Address Health Workforce Shortages in Northern Nigeria. Reducing Health Inequalities in Brazil’s Universal Health-Care System: Accountability Politics in São Paulo. 14||Shukla et al Making Private Health Care Accountable: Mobilising Civil Society and Ethical Doctors in India. Making Private Health Care Accountable: Mobilising Civil Society and Ethical Doctors in India*
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