Are Indian Government Hospitals the worst in the world?

I'm feeling ashame to tell that my country's hospital is worst right now... we are forgetting our pride.this is the main problem..even doctors are not having the patriotism of our nation growth..while i'm seeing the peoples in govt hospital... i can find the status of our nation...really all we are working only for task of money not even from the heart...shame on us... But i'm having great hope that my nation will become perfect soon...We have started our service...our youth generation is ready to give their life for our nation...Come on Doctors,Nurse n all my public friends Let's Lead INDIA..jai hind

Definitely there is no doubt in it infact even some of the private hospitals are in no better shape than the indian govt hospitals.

In fact if you get a chance to visit any of these hospitals you will see that the patients lie down on the floor and hold the NS bottles with their one hand

I could not fully accept with your view points Ms.Bindu Narayan.

We have better systems than others. However, the remedial actions need to be taken in all govt. hospitals.

As rightly said there is no answer to the debate that the state of Indian hospitals is worst in the country or not worst? As India is huge country with 28 states and the health is state subject; there are stark differences in provision of health care across Indian states. In some states it is worst and in some states it is good (that also in some parts of the states). It is multifaceted problem.

In fact I may see it through two angles. One is that if we look at the government hospitals in terms of infrastructure and the 3M (material, manpower money supply) it is worst ever; however there are reasons to make this situation happen worst. 

India faces a huge need gap in terms of availability of number of hospital beds per 1000 population. With a world average of 3.96 hospital beds per 1000 population India stands just a little over 0.7 hospital beds per 1000 population. Doctors to patient ratio is too scarce as well as medicines are out of stock 24*7? The 1993 World Bank Report,Investing in Health(1) clearly suggestive of denying the comprehensive care to all and only provide the essential care for few medical conditions. This policy was clearly adapted as we can see through successive budgetary allocations to health. There were patients who were forcefully kept far away from availing the basic health care and numbers of “discharge against medical advice” (popularly known among doctors DAMA) cases increased. This word make doctors and health care provider to be not the part of sins they are doing within the system by killing the patients by giving DAMA (in many cases patient did not afford treatment and they ask for the discharge and doctors wrote DAMA).

Despite of the worst conditions of the hospital people tend to visit the hospital and avail the services but this is also hampered. Faulty appointment of the doctors on the important positions also has seen the magnificent change on the administration of the hospitals. Before many politicians used to take the treatment from hospitals but now even SHAKHA ADHYASHYA is also not visiting the government hospitals. The political pressure was never built because it was nobody’s issue and nobody’s concern. Politicians and upper class intellectuals’ avail the private up to date services and the opposition party has communal, class and caste issues to fight for. Rest is the ruling government which is a big corporate in itself so it is obvious that why they will look at the loss business (as healthcare is only about spending and there are no returns even though it is built on the public taxes)

Quality of care in terms of hospitality (hospital me hospitality?) is the dream which my generation will be hardly able to see in the lifetime. The behaviour of the staff (ward boy to dean sahib) is totally inhumane and giving a care is big favour for them…

…To be continued in next post

I agree govt hospitals have facility only on paper and in reality they are worst than even public toilets

It is so groos that the doctors are underqualified and I haev seen doctors who have failed their exam more than 3 times and passed due to ATKT(alowed tro keep terms) treat patients

Only if you are a fool will you go to a govt hospital

Hi Bindu,

as an italian fellow I'm not in a position to answer to your question.

Yet, the problem you're laying down is the problem (to be able to judge the quality of hospital performance) I'm trying to cope with in the last 5 yrs!.

As Sanjay says, there are many parameters to be considered.

The OMS is trying to define a system of Hospitals assesment (set of parameters), as many other organizations (e.g. Joint Commission international).

It would be great to create a website to allow people who experenced hospital intervention to record information about their satisfaction.

I'm trying to do that, even if it's not simple. The database is supposed to be very rich of variables and data. Think only about the official list of the names of hospitals (public and private ones) to be loaded in the national databases. This is necessary to have correct statistics afterwards.

I'll let you know about the pilot test of Italian prototype and, if you like, we could make some work together for common aspects that could be considerable for an indian version and at international level.

Best regards,

cs