What's Ailing India's Health Sector Flashcards
The decay in the ethics is the result of corporatisation of healthcare by a greedy industry and politicians (remember, a large number of private medical colleges in this country are owned by politicians or their kin). The overall health market in India was estimated to be $100 billion in 2015 and is expected to grow to $280 billion by 2020, at an annual growth rate of nearly 30 per cent.
The disturbing aspect of this statistic is the fact that most of this growth is happening in the private healthcare sector. In fact, there has been substantial cost-cutting in public healthcare.
In fact, under the present government, we became one of the nations which were spending the least on its health as a percentage of its GDP — less than even Ethiopia and Bhutan. A Lancet report in 2016 mentioned that 80 per cent of India’s healthcare is now delivered by the private practitioners, the very doctors whom the PM now condemns as corrupt.
The destruction of public healthcare in the country has resulted in this extremely lopsided situation and hence the increasing likelihood of the malpractices about which the PM spoke in London. The PM condemned the Indian doctors on charges of corruption and malpractice. He emphasised on the doctor-industry nexus and shared concerns on the fallout of such a relationship.
To blame the doctors is easy. There is no doubt that significant numbers of doctors are involved in unethical practices. It is also true that doctors and pharmaceutical companies form an unholy alliance.
Broad issues ailing the sector:
- Social Inequality:
The growth of health facilities has been highly imbalanced in India. Rural, hilly and remote areas of the country are under served while in urban areas and cities, health facility is well developed. The SC/ST and the poor people are far away from modern health service.
- Shortage of medical personnel - In India shortage of medical personnel like doctors, a nurse etc. is a basic problem in the health sector. In 1999-2000, while there were only 5.5 doctors per 10,000 population in India, the same is 25 in the USA and 20 in China. Similarly the number of hospitals and dispensaries is insufficient in comparison to our vast population.
- Medical Research - Medical research in the country needs to be focused on drugs and vaccines for tropical diseases which are normally neglected by international pharmaceutical companies on account of their limited profitability potential.
