From: The gendered experience with respect to health-seeking behaviour in an urban slum of Kolkata, India
Informal care | Description | Formal care | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Herbalists | Unlicensed traditional medicine men skilled in dispensing herbal medicines | Medical doctors | Qualified allopath with a medical license |
Fortune tellers | Illegal practitioners involved in the practice of predicting and giving spiritual explanations about a person’s life | Para-professionals | Medical assistants with a three-year medical training |
Shamans | Illegal practitioners involved in healing through magico-religious means | Homoeopaths | Recognised as one of its national systems of medicine by the Indian government |
Ritual experts | Priests of the local temple who perform chanting for the well-being of individuals and are not legitimised in the health care system | Â | Â |
Unlicensed drug dealers & drug stores | Drug sellers who do not hold the registration certificate of a pharmacist (d.pharm) and usually dispense medicines without a doctor’s prescription |  |  |