Affordable, quality healthcare for all needed
Can the National Health Policy 2017 ensure affordable,
quality medical care to every citizen? India has a fifth of the world’s disease
burden, a growing incidence of non-communicable diseases and poor financial arrangements to pay for
care. More health professionals need to be deployed for primary care especially
in rural areas. Availability of trained doctors and nurses would help meet the
new infant mortality and maternal mortality goals.
It should also be mandatory for all health institutions to be
accredited, and to publish the approved cost of treatments. To reduce high
out-of-pocket spending, early deadlines should be set for public institutions
to offer essential medicines and diagnostic tests free to everyone.
For last 60 years, money has been spent on building big
institution in big cities. Once the doctors and other allied practitioners get
trained, they work only in these big cities. This has increased the cost of
health care facilities. Now the time is to strengthen our rural block level
hospital so as to overcome the rising cost of affordable medical cost.
India's large population lives in village and a major part of
their income is spent on medical treatment, which ultimately brings poverty. So
the government must spend heavily on improving our rural healthcare
infrastructure, including opening of Medical College at the block level. The
time is for construction of good medical institutions at the village level.
Major problem is accessibility of doctors and hospitals,
especially in rural areas where they are needed the most. The government should
provide construction of hospitals with full equipment and suitable doctors in
the remote areas so that the most needed persons in lower section of society
get access to good medical facilities in their area.
India's attempt to counter poverty through subsidies, doles,
and other such 'gift' systems have failed miserably in that ultimately only the
institutions (whether State or Private) get all the benefits of moneys spent on
those and the beneficiaries get either too little or nothing. Medical
arrangements for the poor is one such thing. In a country where there are over
650,000 villages/ slums/ tribal settlements and large contingents of shifting
population - with over 950 million people in these 'entrapments' - attempting
to offer Health services to all of them would need not less than 5 million to 6
million trained Medical staff and another few million as support staff to do
many other non-technical works. Merely spending huge money through withdrawals
from the exchequer cannot be the answer. India needs to take Two Emergency
steps: (1) Work toward alleviating poverty through offering sustainable Work
and wages; (2) Set up Educational system that is in tune with India's basic
needs
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