Reviewed Date: October 7th, 2021
When we hear poverty, certain images pop up in our minds—soot faces, thin bodies, no proper clothing, congested homes, innocent faces of children, and clustered slums. More than these, we think poverty means hungry.
From the place we are in now, it is easy to say, “Why can’t the poor get educated in public schools? Why can’t they invest in their health? Why can’t they take rational decisions with money? Why do they have to go to private hospitals when there are public hospitals that are free of cost?”
But we are forgetting the fact that we don’t know how poor people think; we have never stepped into their shoes and seen the world. As many people think, the poor don’t go to bed hungry. Government subsidies are providing high-calorie staple food for low costs. The problem arises when the poor spend money on delicious meals rather than eating staple food.
We might think, why would they do that? The reason is subsidies made them feel richer in their household budget. This feeling of being a little rich resulted in less consumption of staple food. And famines happen these days not by lack of food but by distribution failure of available food.
Poor invest in their health care. But they don’t take preventive measures to keep from getting infected by diseases. NGOs and governments supply safety nets and chlorine to purify water for low cost or free. Poor people utilize these, however, not as much as we think. Mostly because they have other things to take care of. If they spend on preventive measures that don’t show immediate improvement in their lives, they feel these don’t have much use.
The reason the poor don’t prefer to go to public hospitals, especially in India, is the high rate of absenteeism. When the poor have ailments, doctors don’t show up at the hospitals, and neither do the nurses. Of all things, services aren’t that up to the mark. That’s why they decide to spend half of their income to treat diseases in private hospitals.
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