A social audit of private hospital services in India

There is a social responsibility in the healthcare sector to provide better healthcare services to all groups of society irrespective of their socioeconomic status. Social audit helps to ascertain the extent of the services being provided to the underprivileged. It was our objective to identify the extent of healthcare services being provided to the underprivileged by the private hospitals, and also to understand the barriers in providing them. A total of 17 hospitals were considered for the study. The medical directors and managers were interviewed for the study. An informal interview and a semistructured questionnaire were used to ascertain the response from the respondents. The questions covered areas such as the percentage of outreach programs; frequencies of subsidized or free services given and barriers they face. Approximately 58% of hospitals stated that they considered the economic status of the patient when considering for free and subsidised services in the hospitals. Around 64% claimed that they provided free and subsidised services to the people. Barriers faced by these hospitals were mostly in finding sponsors. In conclusion, the healthcare sector understands its role in making healthcare affordable and finds ways to reach out to the needy. However, finding a sponsor was seen as a major hurdle for many hospitals.