Health is Wealth?
A healthy man wants a thousand things, a sick man only wants one – Confucius.
India has reached GDP per capita of closed to 2.5K USD, the demographic dividend i.e the economic growth potential that can result from shifts in a population’s age structure, mainly when the share of the working-age population (15 to 64)? is larger than the non-working-age share of the population (14 and younger, 65 and older) is growing continuously, 62.5% of India’s population in the age group of 15-59 years and will reach it’s peak around 2036 to 65%.
With more people in the labor force and fewer children to support, our country has a window of opportunity for economic growth if the right social, economic investments and policies are made in health, education, governance, and the economy.
Today’s area of focus is health, India is a signatory of the?Article 25?of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) by the United Nations?that grants the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being to humans including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services. Article 21 of of the Constitution of India guarantees a fundamental right to life & personal liberty. The right to health is inherent to a life with dignity.
Significance of Right to Health
Right Based Healthcare Services:?The people are?entitled to the right to health, and it creates a compulsion for the government to take steps toward this.
Wide Access to Health Services:?Enables everyone to access the services and?ensures that the quality of those services is good enough to improve the health?of the people who receive them.
Reduce Out of Pocket Expenditure:?Protects people from the financial consequences of paying for health services out of their own pockets and reduces the risk of people getting pushed into poverty.
Challenges Related to Right to Health in India
Despite recent improvements, India's healthcare infrastructure remains inadequate, particularly in rural areas.
India has 1.4 beds per 1,000 people, 1 doctor per 1,445 people, and 1.7 nurses per 1,000 people. Over 75% of the healthcare infrastructure is concentrated in metro cities, where only?27% of the total population resides—the rest 73% of the Indian population lacks even the basic medical facilities.
2. High Disease Burden:
?India has a high burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases including tuberclosis, HIV/AIDS, malaria and?diabetes.
Addressing these diseases requires significant investment in healthcare infrastructure and resources.
3. Gender Disparities:
Women in India face significant health disparities, including limited access to healthcare, higher rates of maternal mortality, and gender-based violence.
According to the World Economic Forum 2021, India consistently ranks among the five worst countries in the world for the health and survival of females.
Women from poor households account for over 2,25,000 lesser hospital visits than men between 2017 and 2019 for nephrology, cardiology, and oncology services alone.
4. Limited Health Financing:
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India's health financing system is limited, with low levels of public spending on healthcare. This limits the government's ability to invest in healthcare infrastructure and resources, and it can lead to inadequate healthcare services for individuals.
Government of India spent 2.1% of GDP on healthcare in FY23.?This is much lower than the average health spending share of the GDP — at around 5.2% — of the Lower- and Middle-Income Countries.
Way Forward
India needs to?significantly increase its investment in healthcare infrastructure?and resources, including medical facilities, equipment, and healthcare professionals. This can be achieved through increased public spending on healthcare and increased private sector investment including CSR.
?To improve access to healthcare,?India needs to address the barriers that prevent individuals from accessing healthcare services, including financial constraints, transportation, and discrimination.
This can be achieved through targeted policies and programs, such as health insurance schemes, mobile healthcare units and most importantly by the will of the people, people like Smt. Subhasini Mistry.
In the Human Resources Management Course taught by Prof. Surya Prakash Pati , he introduced us to Smt. Subhasini Mistry, 2018 awardee of the Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian award.
Smt. Subhasini Mistry was born in 1943 in Kulwa village in Kolkata?into a poor farmer's family. She was married at the age of 12. Her husband, a vegetable vendor, died 12 years later because he was unable to get medical help for a common ailment. He left her to look after four children. Soon after his death, Mistry decided that she would not let anyone else face the same kind of difficulties that her husband had to face due to lack of access to healthcare.
A young widow without any education, she worked as a manual labourer, vegetable vendor and as a domestic help for 20 years, and earned a little more than 100 rupees a month. Two of her sons worked at a tea stall. They survived on boiled rice for years, Ajay, the eldest son was a brilliant student, lived in a children’s home and studied in a free school and worked hard to become a doctor.
In 1992, after many years of saving money, she used her lifelong savings to buy an acre of land in Hanspukur village. She finally opened a one-room clinic and soon her son joined as a dotor. In 1993, the clinic treated 250 people with volunteer doctors and expanded into a hospital in 1995. Today, the Humanity Hospital has since expanded into a 45-bed hospital that spread over three acres and has the best of medical equipment. She currently owns two hospitals, one located in her village (the village into which she was married) in Hanskhali, Nadia District and another at Sundarbans.
Ajay Mistri, the eldest son said “we started this hospital to make treatment accessible to the poor. It hasn’t changed and it never will. We will strive to make the hospital bigger and better, but not by charging patients. We have a provision to to accept a token amount of INR 900 from those who can afford it, medicines too are given away free of cost at the hospital.
Several villages in India still do not have an adequate health infrastructure & equipment, one example is highlighted in below video titled “I Investigated the Cancer District of Uttar Pradesh | Bharat Ek Khoj Ep17 | Unfiltered by Samdish”
By the end of our HRM course, it struck to me the kind of privilege I and my fellow classmates have compared to the remote villagers of India and a question kept wrangling in my mind, how many hospitals will be created from this batch? only time can tell.
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