Introduction
Health care is the organized provision of medical care to individuals or a community.
The rural people deserve good healthcare.
Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments ine people. Health care is delivered by health professionals and allied health fields.
High-quality health care helps prevent diseases and improve quality of life. Healthy People focuses on improving health care quality and making sure all people get the health care services they need. Helping health care providers communicate more effectively can help improve health and well-being.
There are three goals of a healthcare system:
•Improving the patient experience of care including quality and satisfaction; •Improving the health of populations; and
• Reducing the per capita cost of health care.
The purpose of healthcare:
The fundamental purpose of health care is to enhance quality of life by enhancing health. Commercial businesses focus on creating financial profit to support their valuation and remain viable. Health care must focus on creating social profit to fulfill its promise to society.
India has a multi-payer universal health care model that is paid for by a combination of public and private health insurance funds along with the element of almost entirely tax-funded public hospitals.
In 2022, we expect healthcare providers themselves will strengthen and formalize training to research and promote telehealth best practices to their clinicians. It's already happening, and we expect to see specialties like mental health and urgent care shifting to a predominantly virtual model in 2022.
Telehealth services:
Telehealth connects patients to vital health care services through videoconferencing, remote monitoring, electronic consults and wireless communications. By increasing access to physicians and specialists, telehealth helps ensure patients receive the right care, at the right place, at the right time.Telehealth is the distribution of health-related services and information via electronic information and telecommunication technologies. It allows long-distance patient and clinician contact, care, advice, reminders, education, intervention, monitoring, and remote admissions.
Telehealth is a way of using technology to monitor your own health, with the support of health professionals. It can help you learn more about your condition (COPD, diabetes, heart failure) and how to manage it effectively.
India's healthcare sector is expected to reach $372 billion in 2022, registering a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 22% since 2016, more so with the pandemic opening up several opportunities, NITI Aayog said in a report.
Public health care system in India:
Public healthcare is free for every Indian resident. The Indian public health sector encompasses 18% of total outpatient care and 44% of total inpatient care with total of 62% . Middle and upper class individuals living in India tend to use public healthcare less than those with a lower standard of living.
Private health sector:
The private health sector offers high-quality health care at a fraction of the price of hospitals in developed countries.
The measures to fix healthcare in India:
First, the government must embrace the idea of tax-funded universal coverage, as opposed to contributory or subsidized private insurance schemes. Second, it must incentivize preventive care by setting up more robust primary-care facilities, especially in underserved rural areas.
Reasons for poor health care in India:
Lack of infrastructure:
The government's spending on healthcare, the gap in demand and supply, and chronic shortages are some of the concerns that need urgent attention. Data suggests that India has 1.4 beds per 1,000 people, One doctor per 1,445 people, and 1.7 nurses per 1,000 people.
Social Inequality is healthcare a problem in India:The growth of health facilities has been highly imbalanced in India. Rural, hilly and remote areas of the country are under served while in urban areas and cities, health facility is well developed. The SC/ST and the poor people are far away from modern health service.
Despite limited resources, Indian doctors provide one of the highest quality of care in the word – Harvard & Bloomberg. This could be a model for US Healthcare. This might come as pleasant surprise for you. Doctors in both private and public healthcare in India provide one of the highest quality of care.
Indian doctors are leaving country.The primary reason for doctors leaving India seems to be expensive private medical education. Certain private colleges in the country charge more than Rs 1 crore for a five-year undergraduate MBBS programme. A two-year MS General Surgery programme costs Rs 1.15 crore.Unlike technology and engineering students who pass out in thousands each year in India, the number of doctors graduating from accredited Indian institutions is far less and that is why they are a coveted species.
Indian doctors are respected all over the world because of their skills and efficiency.
Being a doctor stressful in India:
It's no more a secret that the kind of stress and pressure doctors witness in their life is unusually high. The challenging nature of their work demands their sole attention, expertise, and empathy.Being in this profession can be quite stressful and hard especially while announcing critical medical conditions and near death situation. But equally rewarding part of being a doctor is watching the relief, happiness on the faces of the patients and the attendants of a cured one.
Total health expenditure includes both private and public spending on medical, paramedical, information and technological goods and services that have the goal of promoting health and preventing disease. All products and services provided by the Specialty Hospitals industry are included in total health expenditure.
Government spending at 3% of GDP on healthcare is a widely accepted norm. Even the 2021 Economic Survey recommended that government spending on health should rise to at least 2.5% to 3%.
India government healthcare expenditure:
Indian government was estimated to spend over two percent of the country's GDP on healthcare in financial year 2022. This was forecasted to reach over 2.5 percent of the GDP by financial year 2025.
The total health expenditure constitutes current and capital expenditures incurred by government and private sources including external or donor funds. As per the report, the current health expenditure (CHE) is Rs5,40,246 crores which is 90.58% of THE(Total health expenditure) and capital expenditures is Rs56,194 crores, which is 9.42% of THE.
The reasons for expensive Indian health-care:
A major reason for the rise in medical expenses in India is that a lot of money goes into developing novel treatment options for people suffering from life threatening ailments. Devising state-of -the-art drugs and treatment methods for illnesses such as cancer, transplants, etc.
In India, since the public health sector is less funded, the arena of healthcare is extremely capitalised. Due to this nature of a free economy in the healthcare sector, with extremely high demand, the prices of private healthcare in India continues to boom at an unprecedented rate.
The United States is the highest spending country worldwide when it comes to health care.
Reason for the poor healthcare in India:
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 lack even basic medical facilities. The primary medical centers are lacking over 3,000 doctors and in the last decade, the shortage has increased by ~200%.
Although India has more affordable healthcare in comparison to many other countries, treatments are still out of reach for a vast majority of the population. Even the most basic facilities provided under healthcare systems may prove expensive for most people in the country.
People can't afford medicine in India:
The major hurdle to use of essential medicines in India is its low availability within health care facilities. In India, where the proportion of poor economic group is high, economic constraints related to the ability to afford medicines, constitute a major reason for lack of access to essential medicines.
Covid-19 pandemic and India:
India being developing country was able to face the challenge of Corona pandemic.The credit goes to Corona warriors including Doctors, Paramedical staff, Health workers, Pharma industries ,Police and Air force as well other work forced.
India provided Hydroxy Chloroquine sulphate, Paracetamol and Azithromycin drugs to over 20 SAARC countries and USA and Germany.
India also supplied Corona vaccine 235 million supplies to 98 countries of the world.
Information compiled by: Dr. Bhairavsinh Raol
