Addressing women's non-maternal healthcare financing in developing countries: what can we learn from the experiences of rural Indian women?

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This paper focuses on the inadequate attention on women's non-maternal healthcare in low- and middle-income countries. The study assessed the purchase of and financial access to non-maternal healthcare. It also scoped for mainstreaming household financial resources in this regard to suggest for alternatives.

METHODS: A household survey through multi-stage stratified sampling in the state of Orissa interviewed rural women above 15 years who were neither pregnant nor had any pregnancy-related outcome six weeks preceding the survey. The questions explored on the processes, determinants and outcomes of health seeking for non-maternal ailments. The outcome measures were healthcare access, cost of care and financial access. The independent variables for bivariate and multivariate analyses were contextual factors, health seeking and financing pattern.

RESULTS: The survey obtained a response rate of 98.64% and among 800 women, 43.8% had no schooling and 51% were above 60 years. Each woman reported at least one episode of non-maternal ailment; financial constraints prevented 68% from receiving timely and complete care. Distress coping measures (e.g. borrowings) dominated the financing source (67.9%) followed by community-based measures (32.1%). Only 6% had financial risk-protection; financial risk of not obtaining care doubled for women aged over 60 years (OR 2.00, 95% CI 0.84-4.80), seeking outpatient consultation (OR 2.01, 95% CI 0.89-4.81), facing unfavourable household response (OR 2.04, 95% CI 1.09-3.83), and lacking other financial alternatives (OR 2.13, 95% CI 1.11-4.07). When it comes to timely mobilization of funds and healthcare seeking, 90% (714) of the households preferred maternal care to non-maternal healthcare.

CONCLUSION: The existing financing options enable sub-optimal purchase of women's non-maternal healthcare. Though dominant, household economy extends inadequate attention in this regard owing to its unfavourable approach towards non-maternal healthcare and limited financial capacity and support from other financial resources.