NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

By Lauren Frayer

In the marble halls of Mumbai’s Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, patients are greeted by chandeliers and floor-to-ceiling French windows.

There are autism and Alzheimer’s clinics, genetic testing, clinical trials of new drugs and private rooms. Spinal injuries are treated in a special robotics rehabilitation unit, where patients are hooked up to robots to exercise their limbs.

And visitors can grab a Starbucks latte in the lobby.

At Sion hospital, 9 miles away, Shaheen Khan, 39, was brought in for gallstones in June. After waiting for eight days in a facility so crowded that patients share mattresses on the floor, she was told to go home and they’d call her when a bed opened up. She’s now been waiting six weeks to hear back.

That’s the tale of two kinds of health care in India – for the wealthy and for the rest of the country. But the prime minister hopes to change all that.

Photo courtesy of Amre.