The cost of inpatient in the ICU for Covid-19 treatment in India is equivalent to seven months or more than the average income of salary workers, entrepreneurs or casual, with a burden on casual workers which are equivalent to the income of the year and three months, a study has concluded.
The paper on the cost and affordability of Covid testing and treatment in India by the Indian Community Health Foundation and the Duke Global Health Institute in the US are in the pre-print stage.
Using the limited price of the government, this study calculates that households must spend more than RS 64,000 crore rupees on testing and hospitals from April 2020 to June 2021.
It is concluded that the medical costs directly to find care by households are very large and unsustainable and Simply large segments will not be able to pay covid care and services.
According to research, the cost of hospitalization in the ICU exceeded the annual income of 86% of casual workers, more than 50% of the salary and two-thirds of those who were self-employed.
Even the only cost of isolation in hospitals exceeds annual income of more than 43% of casual workers, a quarter of an entrepreneur and 15% of salary.
Even the estimated RS 2,200 for RT-PCR tests in the private sector will amount to a week’s income for an ordinary worker.
More than one test must be made during the disease and other people in the family must also undergo testing, which will put a large burden on the family.
“We have calculated costs by taking the average price of Capped announced by various state governments.
But the price of this capped has several exceptions.
So, actual costs can be much higher than expected,” said Saktthivel Selvaraj, the main author of this study.
Not only most close prices have some exceptions, most are rejected and / or skipped.
“Estimates of focusing on financial costs directly from Covid-19 Care, greater costs for individuals and health care systems are not considered.
Even other additional direct costs such as transportation costs, payments made for funeral expenses, etc.
are not counted for,” Paper said That, adding that estimates must be considered “Low-end of the full cost of Covid-19 intervention”.
It also talks about black marketing, and rental searches, oxygen and various drugs, which will hit patients hard.
This study is considered a Covid episode as ten days if in the ICU and seven days if it isolates at home and calculates revenue from various categories of workers from the periodic workforce survey 2017-18.