Despite free treatment, 25% Indian TB patients had to sell assets to pay

Out-of-pocket (OOP) health expenses drove 55 million Indians--more than the population of South Korea, Spain or Kenya--into poverty in 2011-12

One in four tuberculosis (TB) patients had to sell assets or borrow money--that is, resort to ‘hardship financing’--to pay for their treatment, a new study has shown.

“The elimination of catastrophic costs by linking eligible TB patients with social welfare schemes including providing nutritional support” is a stated objective of the National Strategic Plan (NSP) 2017-2025, the Centre’s plan to eliminate TB in India by 2025. However, even among those who received free care, 21.3% of patients resorted to hardship financing, according to the study published in the