Please Politicize heath care.......

"It" broke my heart. "It" here is not a ghastly act by a girl, nor that I lost something or someone important. But, "it" somehow managed to break my heart and made me think about one of the most important facility that shall be talked about for a country. The facilty that is seldom talked about unless there is an epedimical outbreak. Yes, the "it" here is the "Medical facility in India".

And why did "it" break my heart?

In India, more often than not, the most important things are always least talked about. It is hard to think of anything more important than health for human happiness and the quality of life. And yet, health is virtually absent from public debates and democratic politics in India.

How do I know? Just observe the newpapaers, news channels and any other media,they talk about Politics, Sports, Entertainment, Woman empowerment etc. But the last time when the debates scratched the surface of Medical Faciltity was when they talked about Sex education and its appropriateness. Holy god!!!!. Otheriwise they do not even bother to talk about.

Does that mean that Indians are a healthy lot and it is a waste of time talking about this? No, infact the situation is far beyond for being called worst! According to a Harvard study, absence rates among health workers range between 35 and 58 per cent in different Indian States. A similar picture emerges from an ongoing study of health services in Udaipur district (Rajasthan). More than half of the health sub-centres were found to be closed during regular opening hours, and even in the PHCs and Community Health Centres, 36 per cent of the personnel was absent on average. Meanwhile, local residents suffer from horrendous levels of morbidity: one-third of all adults had a cold during the 30 days preceding the survey, 42 per cent had "body ache", 33 per cent had fever, 23 per cent suffered from fatigue, 11 per cent had chest pains, and more than half suffer from anaemia. Close to one-third would find it difficult to draw water from a well and one in five has difficulty standing up from a sitting position. The situation is similar, if not worst, almost through out the country.
If this is the health condition of a country which continously relies on it Human Resources, the health services condition is even dismal, to say the least. As a ratio of GDP, public expenditure on health in India is among the lowest in the world — about one per cent. In fact, the health system is almost totally privatised. To illustrate, only 15 per cent of total health expenditure in India is public expenditure; the rest is private expenditure, such as over-the-counter drug purchases from chemist shops. By contrast, the ratio of public expenditure to total health expenditure is 40 per cent in east Asia, 50 per cent in Latin America, 75 per cent in Europe, and as high as 85 per cent in Britain. In large parts of India, there are no public health facilities worth the name, except for female sterilisation and polio immunisation.

If you attribute the state of affairs to the Poverty of the masses, you are mistaken!!! The harsh reality is that, even the rich, more often than not, do not have the access to decent health services. The technology and the expertise are there, but public facilities are highly inefficient and private services are virtually unregulated, leaving patients at the mercy of unscrupulous practitioners. Fraud, over-medication and unnecessary surgery are the bread and butter of the private health sector. To illustrate, according to a recent study of health services in Mumbai, about 65 per cent of deliveries performed in the private sector end up with a Caesarean, compared with 9 per cent in the public sector (the latter is close to WHO norms).


What is the solution? How can one tackle this problem? If you ask me, I would tell, Politicize the issue, yes, make the health part of democratic politics, make health care a part of election campaigns and let the Politicians talk about it. The benefits, mid day meals, free medicines, more vaccinations, active Public Health Centers and a Healthy Country. I am not dreaming this, nor am I showing an unrealistic picture, I have a proof. The states like Tamilnadu and Kerala where health is a part of the Politics.
The health facilties in states like Tamilnadu are far better, the Health centers are clean and lively. There are lots of medicines available for free and the health centers are well maintained and staffed, thanks to regular inspections. How was this possible? Competetion! Competetion between two governments, one has provided good facilties and the other has no option but to better them. On the contrary, in north India, the situation is rather gloomy. If you go to a PHC you are greeted by a hostile environment which is reluctant to serve. The reason, health care is not the part of Politics here.

I am not saying, polticizing the issue is the only solution, but it solves many a problem.

SO PLEASE POLITICIZE HEALTH CARE.