India was ranked at 112 out of 190 countries by World Health Organization’s 2000 report. Only 4.2% of India’s total GDP is channelized to healthcare goods and services and care as compared to US which spends 18% of its GDP into Health-care. Further on the quality of health-care in India suffers from a huge divide between rural and urban. 70% of India’s population is rural, and this majority suffers at the hands of sub-standard health-care quality, limited or no access to hospitals and clinics, shortage of medicines and doctors and also awareness. Further on, the rural areas depend on and believe alternative medicines and are highly ignorant about varied health and hygiene hazards.
In the name of improvement some programs like the National Urban Health Mission which pays individuals for healthcare premiums, in partnership with various local private partners, which have proven ineffective to date. Urban on the other hand suffers at the hands of excess but not available to the poor due to the privatisation and profit making attitude. The urban centres have numerous private hospitals and clinics which provide quality healthcare. These centres have better doctors, access to preventive medicine, and quality clinics which are a result of better profitability for investors compared to the not-so-profitable rural areas. It is this sheer divide and attitude of making medicine a profit centre that is leading to numerous issues. It is about time we take health-care seriously.
