Crowdfunding healthcare costs: Where there’s a bill, there’s a benefactor
Doctors are turning to crowdfunding to ensure treatment for needy patients
Doctors who try to be true to the modern Hippocratic oath are faced with the challenge of alleviating not just a patient’s medical condition but also financial constraints that push healthcare out of reach. A medical professional today treats not just a fever chart or a cancerous growth, but a sick human being whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability.
And the innovative among them have turned to multiple sources from crowdfunding campaigns, appeals on social media to tapping corporate donors for funds to ensure complete treatment.
One such doctor is Pramod Chinder of the Malnad Cancer Hospital in Shivamogga. An orthopedic oncologist, Dr. Chinder has raised ₹25 lakh through the crowdsourcing platform Milaap for 10 children with bone cancer. This malignant tumour destroys healthy bone tissue, and often presents in children between the ages of seven and 13. If treated early, the success rate can be as high as 70%.
Early detection
One of the major concerns for bone cancer specialists is that the symptoms, such as severe pain in the knee joint, can be dismissed by parents who would think the child had fallen and suffered an injury. This is one of the reasons Dr. Chinder visits hospitals around Bengaluru, Shivamogga and Mangaluru to identify patients early.
“Once the children are identified, the onus is on me to get treatment for them, somehow,” he said.
Treatment for bone cancer can cost anywhere between ₹10 lakh and ₹12 lakh. “Under various schemes, the government offers financial support for basic care. To add the extra quality of care, which could increase their chances of survival, better drugs and treatment are sometimes needed,” said Dr. Chinder.
“In 60% to 70% cases, the children have survived,” said the oncologist.
He is now running a fundraising campaign for four-year-old Ganesh, who has cancer in the right elbow, and has been able to collect ₹68,775 of the ₹1,75,000 needed.
A group of doctors at Aster CMI Hospital came year to start The Affordable transplant initiative, which identifies children who need funding for liver transplants.
Corporate Help
Through crowdfunding sites like Milaap and Ketto, the group has managed to raise ₹80 lakh to partially fund 16 transplants. However, as the cost of a pediatric transplant can be as high as ₹15 lakh and ₹25 lakh for an adult, the doctors have tapped into corporate donations.
Sonal Asthana, a transplant surgeon with Aster CMI Hospital, who is part of the initiative, said corporate funders such as the Praveen Agarwal Foundation matched every rupee raised through crowdfunding.
The government offers micro-insurance for transplants but the cost is high.
One of the success stories is five-year-old Madhumitha from Bengaluru, who underwent a successful liver transplant four month ago.
“My daughter is now like any other child, healthy and full of life,” said her mother Varalakshmi, who had approached the doctors for help. The hospital raised ₹4.5 lakh for the surgery through crowdfunding while another ₹7.5 lakh was met by the family and through government funds. The parents have also applied for aid under a government scheme to pay for post operative care.
Doctors also turn to Facebook and WhatsApp for funds. Th Pediatric and Geriatric Care Foundation, comprising alumni from government medical college in Hubballi, Kalaburagi and Bengaluru, used this route to raise ₹13,50,000 for 45 children since 2013.
The money has been used for corrective surgery for deformities, and care for accident victims and premature babies.
Money and medicine: A doctor participates in a medical camp in a Karnataka village.