indian council of medical research - Pondicherry University DSpace ...

many (53 1%) preferred to take them to a government hospital because ~t was less
costly However. for serious ailments, 98.1% said they would go to a private doctor
because the care and attention were better and cure was faster.
The follow!nQ were some of the statements made in thrs regard :-
I. "Whether it is the first child or last child, or a girl or a boy, if any child falls
sick, the same attention will be given" (A 39 year old man in a group discussion).
Thls mew was expressed by many people, both women and men.
2. How will a mother neglect her child? - All children are ours and we have the
same affection for all of them. Even if we have 5 daughters we will give them
the same care" (A 36 year old woman in a group discussion)
3. "If we have money we take to the doctor at once. If we don't have money we
go to a government hospital" (A 33 year old woman in an in-depth inte~ew).
4. "Who will go to a government hospital?. They are very rude and impolite. If
we had money, we will go to private doctor even for minor illness" (A 34 year
old woman in a group dlscuss~on).
jbl Other ep~dem~oloa~cal methods
To study thls Issue of health care data were also collected from the study vlllage dunng
cerisus lertlary care tiosp~tal and the Government Chest Cl~nlc. Pond~cherry The
results of the data collected from these three sources are descnbed below -
(i) Data from rural area
3 Immunization
Data collected at the time of Census
Out of 503 girls between 5-20 years of age, 426 (84 7%) and 465 (90.1%) out of 516
boys in the same age group were completely immunized The difference was
statlstl~ally s~gn~f~cant (p < 0.05).