Healthy Healthcare

Similar to voices being heard from all sorts of circles, marked by mutually rivalling concerns, relating to the major afflictions bugging the land’s masses, particularly the uninformed rustic population, we also  read in the dailies virtually everyday reports from both government departments and voluntary agencies keeping a hawk’s eye on the efforts to arrest fatalities as well as disabilities caused by the afflictions in growing numbers year on year. The country’s health scene doesn’t seem to be heading for perceptible makeover for the better even as the infrastructure and services in the country’s health sector are expanding at an unprecedented pace and on a scale never witnessed in the land anytime since the nation’s self-rule began seven decades ago. Further, it is anybody’s guess if the citizens at large are themselves concerned about their health, barring a minuscule exception in the population.

In an interview that took place recently, talking to the interviewer on issues of India’s poverty scene and related matters, Melinda Gates, wife of Microsoft Founder and the world’s leading philanthropist averred that the world won’t meet the UN’s goals of poverty eradication and sustainable development without India making progress. Her assertion that India is absolutely poised to make that progress should exhort all stockholders and stakeholders to work with commitment towards healthy healthcare of all citizens in the land. The decision by the Union Government to create medical facilities similar to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in public sector at more locations and the well-known institutions under private management in the few metropolises, including Bengaluru, offering near-world-class medical services as well as the recently introduced pro-citizen measure relating to generic drugs should augur well for the success of Melinda’s optimistic wish of India making progress, which, as she has rightly observed, depends on people being able to live a healthy life, which in turn is linked to two important points namely (a) level of education (enough to beat ignorance) and (b) financial strength (derived from family income).

In the backdrop of the above preamble, it is appropriate to invoke the verdict “Government can’t bear the burden of health care alone; private sector needs to pitch in” attributed to Kenneth Thorpe, Professor of Health Policy at Emory University, based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, working with India’s Union government on blueprints for national-level health policy changes. Needless to stress that even well orchestrated policies can find fulfilment only if the beneficiaries play their part in implementation stages marked by a bureaucracy sans commitment.