Vijay Garg
Gradually the condition of government hospitals is improving, but considering the population of the country, this improvement is not enough. Even in this era, there is a huge shortage of staff in many government hospitals of the country. Despite so much development, not all tests are conducted in district hospitals. Because of this, patients have to get tests done from private doctors. Many times, doctors working in government service are negligent, and sometimes government doctors are not able to do better work due to lack of resources. In many places, machines remain broken in government hospitals for years. Even after doctors write several letters to the department, the system does not improve. In such an environment, the enthusiasm of qualified doctors decreases.
Recently corruption was exposed in Delhi’s Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. Eleven people including two doctors of this hospital were arrested. There is an allegation of promoting the products of certain companies. They are also accused of illegally extorting money from patients for admission. When corruption is being promoted in the hospitals of the country’s capital, the condition of far-flung hospitals can be easily imagined.
Recently, NITI Aayog had underlined the need to increase expenditure on health services. It is a bitter truth that health services in our country are in a pathetic condition as per the needs of the population. Only one and a half of GDP in health services in India is spent. Many countries of the world are spending eight to nine percent on health services. During the Covid-19 period, the poor health services of our country were exposed. If the health infrastructure of our country was better, more facilities could have been provided to the public during the Coronavirus period. At that time, while on one hand many doctors were discharging their duties by taking many risks, on the other hand many private hospitals were focused on earning financial profits.
Even in this era if basic facilities like healthcare are not available, then it is natural to raise questions on the health services of the country. Even in this progressive era, many such reports have come to light that hospitals could not even provide an ambulance to take the dead body of the poor patient home.
It is noteworthy that in a report released recently by ‘Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy’ (CDDEP), it was said that there is a shortage of about six lakh doctors and twenty lakh nurses in India. In India, there is one government doctor for every 10,189 people, while the World Health Organization estimates that there is one government doctor for every 10,189 people. Similarly, in our country there is one nurse for every 483 people. According to the report, there is a shortage of trained personnel to administer antibiotics in India, due to which life-saving medicines are not available to patients. In our country, the incidence of diseases is high due to the failure of the system and various environmental factors. The availability of doctors in India is worse than countries like Vietnam and Algeria. At present there are about 7.5 lakh active doctors in our country. Due to lack of doctors there is delay in getting health facilities. This situation ultimately affects the health of the entire country.
The Parliamentary Committee on Health and Family Welfare, in its report released recently, had acknowledged that there are many reasons for common people in our country not getting health facilities on time. Therefore, there is a need to make health facilities more intensive. Actually, India is facing many challenges on the issue of health services. The situation is that due to population growth, the number of sick people is increasing.
It is noteworthy that countries like China, Brazil and Sri Lanka spend more than us in the health sector. Whereas India’s economic growth rate in the last decade has probably been the highest after China. Therefore, recently an expert committee of the Planning Commission had also recommended that the allocation for public medical services should be increased. The irony is that health schemes in India are also victims of corruption. On the other hand, private hospitals and doctors are cutting money.
Recently, the Indian Medical Council had decided on the punishment to be given to the doctors under a code of conduct in view of the various facilities availed by the doctors from the pharmaceutical companies. But even now doctors are getting various facilities from pharmaceutical companies and the burden of this is falling on the patients. Today it is not hidden from anyone that pharmaceutical companies give expensive gifts to doctors to get their medicines prescribed. That’s why doctors try their best to sell the medicines of these companies. The limit is reached when some doctors by prescribing medicines, keep their promises to the pharmaceutical companies. In this system, for the doctor, the interest of the pharmaceutical companies becomes higher than the interest of the patient. But who will point a finger at the doctors who are working day and night for the welfare of the patients out of a spirit of service? Today many doctors do not turn to villages. In fact, in this era, mostly children, women and old people are having to bear the brunt of the poor health services. For this reason, in many states of the country, on one hand, children are dying due to various serious diseases. On the other hand, women are also not getting basic health services. In this case the condition of the elderly is even more pathetic. In many families, elders do not get mental support. Besides this, their immunity also reduces. In such a situation, if they are not provided with the necessary health services, their life becomes hell.
Therefore, it is important for government health services to be efficient and honest not only from the health point of view, but also from the social point of view. It is unfortunate that this has not happened yet. For the economic and social development of the country, a serious initiative is needed to bring the deteriorating government health services back on track.
(The author is retired principal, educational columnist and can be reached at [email protected])
