Cases- and Narratives- in Private Medical Providers' Accounts of Managing HIV in Urban India

Abstract

While medical pluralism in India has been of longstanding interest to medical anthropologists (see Leslie, 1976; Leslie and Young, 1992), it is only more recently that pluralism, under the guise of privatization in Indian health care, has attracted comparable interest among public health specialists. Accompanying nationwide economic reforms toward a market-based economy (Purohit 2001; Sen 2003), 25634_Adelson.indb 145 13-07-12 2:11 PM 146 Karina Kielmann India's private medical sector rapidly expanded throughout the 1990s, encompassing a wide range of formal and informal medical providers with varying degrees of institutional legitimacy. Operating alongside the government health services, private medical practitioners represent the first pattern of resort for a majority of the Indian population, regardless of income (Sengupta and Nundy 2005). These practitioners, many of whom are trained in Indian systems of medicine and homeopathy (ISM&H),2 frequently combine both allopathic and nonallopathic prescriptions and treatment regimens.