India and it's Crippling Health-care Facility

India and it's Crippling Health-care Facility

( by Suhana Ahmed )

        The healthcare system of the world is way too diverse moving along the countries. There are countries like The USA, The Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and so on where the healtcare facility walks to the doorstep. Whereas, on the other hand, there are countries like Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan where they lack minumum some basic facilities to their inhabitants. Fortunately or unfortunately, India lies somewhere in between. Still, the condition in the developing countries is no better. 

Despite everything, it would be unfair to criticize any specific section of the healthcare system when the whole system is somehwhere at fault. There is a huge scarcity of hospitals; there exist places where a proper hospital couldn't be found in the whole of vicinity for even a basic medical treatment.

Even if one is lucky enough to have a hospital nearby, there is a huge chance that they won't be provided with a bed easily; even in the case of medical emergency- one of the major reasons for this being the presence of more emergencies than the emergency services. The patient will be recommended to move to different hospitals and diagnostic centers for every single test and issue. The availability of the medical and health-care facilities in India is limited, and the more one is financially stable, the more the chances of getting access to it. All in all, the commercialism in this sector haunts a major part of the country.

Health-care service has turned into a business and has been creating a huge gap in the society eversince. The underprivileged section of the society can barely get access to the posh hospitals, tests, medicines and surgeries/operations. It indeed is a well known fact that drug sales have a great profitability margin and in the name of branding the medicines are being sold 1000% to 5000% of the original cost and the corporates don’t let people know about the generic medicines that can be available at a far cheaper price.

Privatization of hospitals has somewhere improved the quality of services that the medical sector provide; for example the cleanliness in the private hospitals is better than that of in the government ones; but the cost of those services are unbearable. It is needed to be understood that to end this discrimination on the basis of wealth, the government would have to overtake all the private hospitals and put all these services under free slab and there expenditures shall be taken care through the taxes- in short words the centralisation of medical and health-care facilities and institutions can narrow this gap to a greater extent.

India had many other traditional branches of medical sciences like Ayurveda, Homeopathy etc., but unfortunately, these weren't ever promoted well. These were not considered branches of medical sciences despite them being as effective or more than allopathy and they have no or least side effects. A system which can be an amalgam of both traditional and modern medical sciences is to be created to better the system.

Indian doctors and research scholars indeed have important roles to play in the world’s progress in healthcare and antibiotics, but the opportunity to showcase their skills in their own country is something that isn't provided enough to benefit the nation. India has put a minute part of its budget to the health-care sector and barely anything on its research.  Currently, the country is facing a situation where it needs a robust health and research system, and yet we ought to still manage with the current scenarios in the facilities to grow further.

Even if the development of a vaccine is achieved, the ability of the country to produce a bulk of it and make it available to the public at an affordable rate is fragile, given the current circumstances of the nation. There aren't enough factories for the manufacturing, there even aren't enough equipments and the economy is facing difficulties.

        There arose a obstacle in the matter recently where there has been a scarcity of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) kits necessary to fight the current pandemic of Covid-19.

When it comes to rectifying the problems, it always has to start from the basic. Beginning from modest dispensaries and medical inspection rooms in rural and semi-urban areas so that the common masses can at least have an easy access to basic facilities sounds reasonable, effective and moreover important.

There needs a pressure to be put on the government to spend more on research work to improve the medical facilities; since not everyone can afford to go to the USA for treatment. There should be factories enabled with fast and mass production systems, so that everyone can get medicines and that too in a nominal rate.

Every doctor and the owners of the hospitals should obtain some kind of values, ethics and morals in themselves and avoid taking “The Hippocratic Oath” and serve the society equally.

Privatization of hospitals should stop, or at least minimize and the government should be the one to fulfill all the medical needs for free to the citizens of the country.(There are countries like Germany who take care of the health and medicinal needs of every citizen from the taxes the people provide.)

In a nutshell, it can be said that there is a long way to go. India is a country with the capability to go far in this journey but for that, there is an immediate need to allocate the resources at right places and that needs development. There has been improvements in the technology and the facility from the independence, but the improvement rate is too slow for the progress to be magnificently shown.

"We genuinely need to think about the future of the Indian society, and thus, we should keep pressurizing, motivating and keeping aware the government and the the fellow citizens through our voices."

Disclaimer:-

The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Light de Literacy and LDL does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.