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Money for nothing: The dire straits of medical practice in Delhi, India

2006; Elsevier BV; Volume: 83; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.jdeveco.2006.05.004

1872-6089

Jishnu Das, Jeffrey S. Hammer,

Global Maternal and Child Health

The quality of medical care received by patients varies for two reasons: differences in doctors' competence or differences in doctors' practice. Using medical vignettes, we evaluated competence for a sample of doctors in Delhi. One month later, we observed the same doctors in their practice. We find three patterns in the data. First, doctors do less than what they know they should do. Second, the more competent the doctor, the greater the effort exerted. Third, competence and practice diverge in different ways in the public and private sectors. Urban India pays a lot of "Money for Nothing": in the private sector there is a lot of expenditure on unnecessary drugs. In the public sector, education subsidies and salary payments translate into little (and in small clinics, very little) effort and care. Provider training has a small impact on the actual quality of advice; under the circumstances, awareness campaigns to create a more informed clientele may be the best option.