Abstract:
The tribal community struggle with the high level of poverty and unemployment, and limited
access to public services like health care. Thus, this study aims to explore how people
access the health care system in Alikkampai village and their challenges. It is completely a
qualitative study. A purposive sampling method was administrated to select the samples.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 persons above 18 years old from the
tribal community. 06 key informant interviews were employed. Finally, this study found
that the availability of health care services in the study area are very limited. Health seeking
behavior of most of the people in Alikampai area changed to Western medicine from their
indigenous health seeking patterns. Lack of self-awareness and inadequate knowledge were
also found among the people to protect themselves from communicable diseases. Once
accessing the facilities given by the public healthcare services of the government, the
people who live in this area have been suffering from insufficient to cure these people‟s
long-time health troubles. Finally, the study identified numerous challenges: (a) limited
public transportation services, (b) long distance to travel, (c) high expenses for getting
private health care services, (d) language issues in communicating with health care service
providers and (e) social exclusion.
