Faith Based Hospitals in India in the Changing Context of Globalization

Abstract

Faith-Based healthcare providers made their entry in Indian health sector in sixteenth newline century and established national presence by the colonial period, primarily delivering services in newline the form of home visits and community healthcare. The post-independence concerns on newline addressing communicable diseases and maternal healthcare, and the church s sanction for nuns newline entering medical practice triggered the growth of FBHs until the 1980s. The challenges of this newline period were unavailability of trained manpower, medicines and infrastructure on one side the newline poor socio-economic profile and health practices of the beneficiaries on the other. With the onset newline of global economic liberalization and structural adjustment and health sector reforms related newline privatization in India, these challenges are overtaken by market driven issues. newline This study of the largest Faith-Based Hospital network in India was done through a three- newline fold method of document analysis, a questionnaire-based survey of these hospitals and multiple newline embedded case studies. The objective of this study was understanding the origin, growth, newline services delivered, challenges faced, and the coping mechanisms adopted by these facilities. newline Working as an extended arm of the public healthcare system, they bridged the gap in newline healthcare services in the hard to reach locations. Although there exist differences in their nature newline of organization and services delivered, all FBHs act in an internal environment of sustained newline commitment to public pro-poor service without profit as a motive. The global economic changes newline and the change in policies of the national government which encourages private investment in newline healthcare have brought out a market situation leading to drastic changes in the business newline environment in which the FBH operate. Foreign aid which was the major income of the FBH newline diminished in the recent past, further pressurizing them to find means for sustainability. But any newline strategic choice without due importance for inclusive services aiming at the poor would be