Location

The Indo-Dutch Project Management Society (IDPMS) analyzed the quality of public health care in rural areas of the Indian state of Karnataka. The Karnatakan government operates a number of rural Public Health Centers; IDPMS randomly selected 15 in two Karnatakan districts, Chamarajanagar (CR Nagar) and Bellary, and interviewed more than 2,800 patients—2,530 outpatients and 290 inpatients. Researchers uncovered evidence of crippling problems with the operation of the Public Health Centers: PHCs are chronically understaffed and lack adequate infrastructure and even standard pharmaceuticals. These problems undermine care to such an extent that Karnatakan citizens, even the very poor, often prefer to pay for private care instead of using PHCs. The study also found that conditions were consistently worse in PHCs in CR Nagar, the poorer and more rural of the two districts.