Health Sector of India

Think about

Imagine the Indian Army working without the nationalistic feeling, something not to give back to the countrymen and the deservedly outcaste and excluded people a sense of security but to get back with benefits as individual concern & to make money. Indian doctors have turned themselves into one such money making machines. The health sector is increasingly encroached by private industries with more number of hospital beds in private hospitals than government hospitals. There is a clear-cut urban-rural divide where the private health industries has colonized the urban areas leaving the vast majority of the Indian rural population at bay. This being said, Indians spend 63% amount of their income in the out of pocket health expenditure. This makes more sense if we tend to realize that India is still a land of poor. The vast majority of the Indian population is hovering around the poverty line and keep on shifting above and below the line. 

Think once about what a rickshaw puller would do if he has to prioritize between the days' food and buying medicine for a headache? It’s a dilemma for him. He would delay it until if it becomes severe and intolerable and makes him unable to work for the next bite of food. Now consider the domesticated women who work and toil all day but get no salary. She is often the last one in the family to eat the food. They have no earnings and if it gets coupled with a brimming health situation, will she let the family's earning to dwindle? She would suffer in silence. No doubt that more than fifty percent of Indian women are anaemic. They also suffer from vitamin-D deficiency even though India is a tropical country! Who talks about it? Have you ever listened a debate about it in the national media or it being said in a political campaign? Nope.

What matters?

If we want to develop this country equitably, lassez-faire just can’t be the monopoly. The burgeoning pharmaceutical industry must be checked to lure doctors with luxurious schemes and trips to make him/her market their medicines. We all have one or more experience with a visit to a doctor. What do we observe? A bunch of patients along with patiently waiting Medical Representatives from pharmaceutical companies, a medical shop, in majority affiliated with the doctor and adjacent to the clinic more or less selling the medicines being prescribed by the doctors… If you are 'lucky' the doctor would consult with you in detail, would ask you detailed questions relevant to the symptoms, and recommend minimal chemical dosages along with good health advice and a side note to stick to a good lifestyle so that the next visit is forbidden. On other hand, you could be predated with an innumerable number of medicines, expensive tests, half-baked experimental advices and a date to come back later. The visiting fees would be the same for all strata of people. If you have the money, go for it, else we all know the mental crisis that follows.

Doc’s perspective

To be a qualified doctor in India is a super-tedious job. At first, there is a tough competitive entrance examination which is preceded by a poor school educational system, high coaching fees, and the scarcity of seats in government colleges. This step usually takes two-three years to pass through for the lucky ones. After this, the student has to bow down to the societal pressure for entering into for graduation, else age-wise will be too late. So by the time, your commerce-friends and far-so the engineering ones are nearing their graduation, you are entering an actual college. 

Now starts the process of MBBS and before reaching the final year the person realizes that this is not enough as per the Indian ‘market’. One has to enter into another entrance examination for doing the MD and specialization. By now if the person is supported financially by the family, it’s okay, else one is a skilled individual at the behest of poverty and back lays a whole life dedicated to studies. The fully baked students got torn badly and emerge as a frustrated being. They have all the responsibilities and dreams falling at their soldiers.

Government Hospital condition

As per the socio-economic condition, a government hospital is the one that could cater to the need of the people as it is highly subsidized. This prevents the cycle of exploitation of the people as the doctor here is salaried and would want to reduce the patient’s visit to a minimum. However the situation of the government infrastructure in India is pathetic. The infrastructure is shabby and lacks state-of-the-art facilities. Even there is a lack of proper toilets for the doctors and the nurses. In fact, if a politician is anyway sick, he would never go to a government hospital for a consultation, least to say for getting admitted. This is even worse at the smaller towns with the facilities becoming minute. There would be Guthka stains all around the walls, the cleanliness would be minimal, there would be no waiting room with patients lying around here and there in an untoward unconscious condition with flies hovering around them and this continues un-hijacked.

At last

As the old quote goes, ‘health is the real wealth’. Education, health and productivity form a cycle and reinforce each other. However, the starter is the education follows with good health and that gives productivity. Health adds to the quality of life of everyone in the human economic pyramid. It is one of the most basic things. Even in developed countries, the government takes more social responsibility for the citizens. There are better and more transparent insurance policies. We need people to be healthy and that would be possible when the sector is affordable, equitable, transparent, ethical and approachable. The idea of earning money through it must be rooted out.

India needs to increase its public health expenditure from 1.5% towards the global average of 6%. This would also increase India’s credibility and attract people from other countries. The education system needs to be overhauled and less frustrating and at the same time, the number of seats in government colleges needs to be heavily increased. ASHA workers have to be formally systematized. Use of ayurveda and homeopathy doctors in a more non-psuedo-scientific way. 

Hope is to find schemes like Ayushman Bharat and PM talking about menstrual pads from the podium of red fort. Again, India could do wonder by getting along with the new Yoga wave across the country. 

P.S. needless to add that there are doctors who are working hell to heaven to make things happen. Salute to them!