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Letter to the Editor
Out-of-pocket expenditure of families on the healthcare of children younger than 5 years
  1. Sora Yasri1 and
  2. Viroj Wiwanitkit2
  1. 1 Medical Center, KMT Primary Care Center, Bangkok, Thailand
  2. 2 Department of Community Medicine, Dr DY Patil University, Pune, India
  1. Correspondence to Dr Sora Yasri; sorayasri{at}outlook.co.th

https://doi.org/10.1136/fmch-2018-000053

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    Dear Editor

    We read the publication with great interest.1 Shrivastava and Shrivastava concluded that ‘the maximum out-of-pocket expenditure was for accident/trauma cases, and overall the largest share was for buying medications for the treatment.’1 We would like to share ideas on this finding. In fact, the expenditure for health is an important consideration in public health management. For the rural area, the expenditure is usually a problem for the local people. In our setting, Thailand,2 the universal coverage is provided and this might help reduce the expenditure for medication. However, the local people usually pay for drugs at a locally available drugstore because of the long distance of travel to the primary care unit that provides free service. In the study by Shrivastava and Shrivastava, an important forgotten expenditure is on the indirect cost, which should include travel cost and loss of daily salary of the parents who have to be absent for normal work to bring the children to get medical service.

    References

    1. 1.↵
      2. Shrivastava SR ,
      3. Shrivastava PS
      . A cross-sectional study to assess the out-of-pocket expenditure of families on the health care of children younger than 5 years in a rural area. Fam Med Community Health 2018;6:124–30.doi:10.15212/FMCH.2018.0114
      OpenUrl
    2. 2.↵
      2. Yiengprugsawan V ,
      3. Kelly M ,
      4. Seubsman SA , et al
      . The first 10 years of the Universal Coverage Scheme in Thailand: review of its impact on health inequalities and lessons learnt for middle-income countries. Australas epidemiol 2010;17:24–6.
      OpenUrlPubMed

    Footnotes

    • Contributors SY and VW contributed equally to this work.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.