Speech on healthcare availability issue in india.
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India has only 10 lakh registered doctors to cater to 1.3 billion citizens. As per the MCI claims, half of the doctors in the country are quacks( unregistered doctors who don’t hold a degree in allopathy). While urban areas have 58% qualified doctors, in rural areas the number is as low as 18.8%.
India continues to spend about 1.2% of its GDP on health sector far less than some of the poorest countries of the world. We are ahead of only a few countries like Myanmar, Pakistan, Sudan and Cambodia.
However, the availability of public health care services is abysmal. There is only one government allopathic doctor per 10,189 people, only one government hospital bed per 2046 people, and one state-run hospital per 90,343 people. Out of 1 million doctors in the country, only 10% of them work in the public health sector(according to National Health Profile). They lack good infrastructure, proper management, dedicated staff and many other things which are required to provide reasonable and appropriate healthcare.
In 2014, 38.2% of India’s population was below the poverty. These people depend on government hospitals for their treatment. Many times they go to hospitals with one disease and come back infected with some other illness due to improper sanitation and inadequate quality of care provided by the staff. In 2017, around 300 infants died in Gorakhpur Baba Raghav Das Medical College due to poor management and a shortage of oxygen supply. But there is little to no evidence to suggest that the government has learnt from its previous mistakes.
India spends only 1-2% of it it GDP on healthcare. With the investment on private healthcare the overall spending stands at 4.5%.
Foreign patients also are coming in large numbers to India for relatively cheaper private healthcare. They mainly come from the Middle East, Africa, Pakistan and Bangladesh for paediatric cardiac surgery, liver transplants, etc. Some even have started coming from UK, Europe and North America for cheap and quick coronary bypass or orthopaedic treatments. This is ironic that while people from other countries are utilising our private healthcare services while its citizens are reeling under catastrophic healthcare expenditure.
After independence in 1947, the private hospital used to provide services to only 5-10% of the patients, but today its accounts for 82% of outpatients visits and 58% of inpatient. Government have supported private sector by releasing prime land resources at low rates, by exemption from taxes and duties for importing drug and high tech medical equipment.
Many private players in healthcare sectors have shifted to profiteering over the last couple of years. They now dominate the upper end of the market, with five stars hospitals manned by foreign-trained doctors who provide services at a rate which only rich people can afford. But the public alternative is so worse, with the long waiting time , dirty surrounding and lack of proper equipment. Many tests cannot happen because of the lack of facilities and medicines. As a result, patients don’t have any choice other than turning towards private sector hospitals.
Private hospital charge so high that more than 40% of all patient admitted in the hospital have to borrow money or sell their assets, and about 25% of farmers are pushed below the poverty line due to the burden of the out of pocket healthcare spending.
Last year, Fortis Hospital in Gurugram billed a dengue patient around Rs.16 lakh for 15 days treatment in its intensive care unit. Despite that they could not save that patient. Despite having new technology and well-trained doctors, there have been many cases of medical negligence in private hospitals. Max Hospital in Shalimar declared baby died when he was alive.
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Speech on healthcare availability issue in india.