The Asian reporter., August 02, 2021, Page 5, Image 5

ASIA / PACIFIC
August 2, 2021
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 5
Pandemic leaves Indians mired
in massive medical debts
AP Photo/Jeff Roberson
Continued from page 4
TABOO TATTOOS. A tattoo on the arm of Yan Peng of China, top photo, a men’s
3-on-3 basketball player, is seen during the 2020 Summer Olympics on July 25, 2021
in Tokyo, Japan. In the bottom photo, water droplets fall down the back of a swimmer
and across an Olympics rings tattoo during the Tokyo Olympics.
Taboo in Tokyo, tattoos
on display at Olympics
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
TOKYO (AP) — Taboo in much of Tokyo, tattoos are everywhere at
the Olympics.
There’s the lion on British swimmer Adam Peaty’s shoulder. An
inspirational message on the arm of Chinese 3-on-3 basketball
player Yan Peng. A likeness of Christ the Redeemer on the calf of
Spanish boxer Gabriel Escobar Mascunano.
And the Olympic
rings. So many Olympic
rings.
French
swimmer
Fantine Lasaffre has
them on her left
forearm, and American
shooter Kayle Browning
on her right wrist.
They’re on Moroccan
boxer Abdelhaq Nadir’s
left bicep, and on the
ankle of Canadian gymnast Shallon Olsen.
Italian gymnast Vanessa Ferrari has them, too, on the back of her
neck — along with ink commemorating previous trips to the Beijing,
London, and Rio de Janiero Games.
Athletes won’t do much mingling with locals at these
pandemic-restricted Olympics. If they did, they might not find their
body art as welcome. Tattoos remain stigmatized in Japan, where
those with them are commonly banned from beaches, gyms, pools,
and elsewhere around Japan.
No such restrictions in the Olympic bubble, though. In the pool, on
the beach, at the range — the athletes are redefining what it means
to have the mark of a champion.
often are out-of-pocket health expenditure and
catastrophic costs of treatment,” said K Srinath
Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of
India.
In the northeastern city of Imphal, 1,490 miles
away, Diana Khumanthem lost both her mother and
sister to the virus in May.
Treatment costs wiped out the family’s savings,
and when the private hospital where her sister died
wouldn’t release her body for last rites until a bill of
about $5,000 was paid, she pawned the family’s gold
jewelry to moneylenders.
When that wasn’t enough, she asked her friends,
relatives, and her sister’s colleagues for help. She
still owes some $1,000.
A health insurance scheme launched by Prime
Minister Narendra Modi in 2018 was intended to
cover around 500 million of India’s 1.3 billion people
and was a major step toward easing medical costs.
But it doesn’t cover the primary care and outpatient
costs that comprise most out-of-pocket expenses. So
it hasn’t “effectively improved access to care and
financial risk protection,” said a working paper by
researchers at Duke University.
The program also has been hobbled by disparities
in how various states implemented it, said Shawin
Vitsupakorn, one of the paper’s authors.
Another paper, by the Duke Global Health
Institute and the Public Health Foundation of India,
found costs of ICU hospitalization for COVID-19 are
equivalent to nearly 16 months of work for a typical
Indian day laborer or seven to 10 months for salaried
or self-employed workers.
Meager funding of healthcare, at just 1.6% of
India’s GDP, is less, proportionately, than what Laos
or Ethiopia spends. At the outbreak’s peak in May,
hospitals everywhere were overrun, but public
facilities lacked the resources to handle the floods of
patients coming in.
“The result is a suffering public health system,
where the provision of care is often poor, prompting
many to flock to private hospitals,” said Dehejia.
A public hospital treated Khumanthem’s mother,
but her sister Ranjita was admitted to a private one
that cost $1,300 per day.
Ranjita was the family’s only earner after
Khumanthem left her nursing job last year to return
home during the first wave of the virus. She’s now
hunting for work while looking after her father and
COVID COSTS. Diana Khumanthem, 30, and her three-year-
old nephew Hridhaan look at photographs on the mobile phone of
Hridhaan’s mother Ranjita, who died of COVID-19 at home in
Imphal, in Manipur, India, on June 28, 2021. Diana lost both her
mother and sister to the virus in May. A public hospital treated Di-
ana’s mother, but her sister Ranjita was admitted to a private
hospital that cost $1,300 per day. Ranjita was the family’s only
earner after Diana left her nursing job last year to return home dur-
ing the first wave of the pandemic. Diana is now hunting for work
while looking after her father and her sister’s three-year-old son.
(AP Photo/Yirmiyan Arthur, File)
her sister’s three-year-old son.
At her home in Imphal, Khumanthem grieved for
her mother by remembering her favorite food —
chagem pomba, a type of gruel made with vegetables,
rice, and soybeans. Every few minutes, she looked
toward the front gate.
“This is usually the time Ranjita would return
home from work,” she said. “I still keep thinking she
could walk through the gate any moment now.”
Back in New Delhi, Sharma sighed in relief as an
ambulance brought his son home from the hospital
late last month. Saurav needs physiotherapy to build
up his weakened muscles, a daily nurse, and a long
list of medications. It may be weeks before he will be
able to stand on his own, and months before the
ambitious lawyer who graduated among the top of
his class will be able to go to court again.
The costs will continue.
“Our first priority was to save him,” Sharma said.
“Now we will need to figure out the rest.”
Associated Press journalist Yirmiyan
Arthur contributed from Imphal.
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