Medical Care Avoidance (MCA): Evidences from Geriatric Health Care in India

Even after sufficient potential in the health sector for treatment; people avoid taking its benefits.  People avoid timely medical help, which ultimately leads to delay in proper diagnosis and treatment, which further increases the chances of more complications. The objectives of the present paper are to understand the various factors that lead to medical care avoidance among older people and to provide suggestions based on the findings of the study. For the analysis of the data comprising of 393 older people over the age group of 60 and includes 219 male respondents and the rest were female respondents. The present analysis was done under four broad parameters related to a low perceived need to seek medical care, traditional barriers to seeking medical care, cynical evaluation of seeking health care and other related or relevant factors. In total 60 variables were considered under various categories. It was found that family members were actively involved in providing medical care. There was some barrier in communication between the patient and the health care provider either due to language or the technicalities involved. It was perceived that the health care providers were prescribing unnecessary tests and medication and were more concerned about their fees rather than patients’ welfare. The fear of pain, monetary drain, lack of health insurance and other related factors leads to medical care avoidance by the elderly male and female patients.