Public Health in India

Indian Public healthcare system is currently dysfunctional and impairing its more than a billion strong population. This may be clear with the following hitting facts:

a) In India only 13% rural population has access to PHC, 33% to Sub-Centres , 9.6% to District Hospital and 28.3% to clinics.

b) Two third of the registered hospitals in india are private owned.

c)Shortage of manpower in PHC is 18% for Doctor, 15% for nurse & 30% for paramedics.

d) Absenteeism in Public healthcare is nearly 40% across the country.

e) Healthcare services account for 27% of the bribes paid for public services.

f) Public healthcare failure results in 17 lakh children deaths (below 1 Year)and India accounts for 1/5 of the global disease burden (23% child deaths, 20% maternal deaths,30% tuberculosis cases, 68% Leprosy cases and 14% HIV cases)

g) The total Shortage of Medical Doctors is around 14 lakh & for Nurses is 28 lakh.

h)Total annual goverment spending on public healthcare services is 2-3 Billion (US $)Public health expenditure in our country is 0.9% out of this central government contribute only 0.29% rest is shared by the state government.

I) The total expenditure on healthcare should not be less than 2.5 % of GDP whereas our goverment spends 0.9% which is even lower than african countries and even out of this 0.9%of GDP 63% goes to wages and salary accounts of the manpower.

India's Healthcare expenditure is 3.6% of the GDP including the 75% financial load shared by common man & Indian hospital bed availability per capita is much lower than sub-Saharan countries.

The above facts clearly shows that our government needs to rise above the rhetoric of its grandiose plans and policies and should do something to improve its dysfunctional healthcare system.