The long awaited National Health Policy announced a few days ago proposes to raise public health expenditure as a percentage of GDP from the current 1.15% to 2.5% by 2025. The resource allocation to individual States will be linked with their development indicators, absorptive capacity and financial indicators. “There will be higher weightage given to... Continue Reading →
Now, ‘qualified’ quacks will treat rural folks in West Bengal
If everything works to plan, health care in rural West Bengal may soon see a change for the better. Nearly 3,000 quacks — informal health-care providers with no formal medical education — are to be trained for six months. The crash course in medicine, and to be conducted by 130 trained nurses, is to begin... Continue Reading →
Non-communicable diseases killed more Indians in 2015
In 2015, India, like other developed countries, had more number of deaths caused by non-communicable diseases. In the case of males, deaths due to non-communicable diseases (3.6 million) were more than double that caused by communicable diseases (1.5 million), while it was nearly double in females (2.7 million due to non-communicable diseases and nearly... Continue Reading →
Quacks treat a majority of rural India
The compulsion to improve the level of competence of private health-care providers with no formal training in rural areas has once again been highlighted by a survey of over 23,000 households in 100 villages in Madhya Pradesh On average, people had access to 11 health-care providers in a village. Seventy-one per cent of these providers... Continue Reading →
Gender bias: fewer girls get cardiac care in Punjab
A retrospective study involving 519 school-children from various areas of Punjab has revealed that gender bias exists with parents favouring boys over girls when it comes to getting their children’s heart problems corrected, even when treatment is provided completely free of charge. The children were diagnosed with either congenital or rheumatic heart disease. Of those... Continue Reading →
Editorial: Shoring up public healthcare
Published in The Hindu on January 1, 2011 The world's growing riches seem to make little difference to over 100 million people globally as they slide into poverty every year because of healthcare costs. One of the unsolved conundrums in many countries is the inability to provide for universal healthcare coverage, despite economic growth and... Continue Reading →
