User Fees in India’s Health Sector: Can the Poor Hope for any Respite?

The study aims to document, review and analyse the usefulness of user fees for healthcare, with emphasis on its implementation in different states of India. Four states were selected where user fees are in force for the last three years prior to July 2005. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to collect the data. The denial for subsidy is quite high for the poor patients. The awareness about exemption policy among users is quite low. The management structure is not uniform across the selected states. It is important to ensure that there is coordination between the state, district and hospital level societies. The exemption policy should take care of the interests of the poor patients.