Is There a Public Healthcare Crisis in India?

Healthcare is a fundamental human right. It provides care for the most simplest of colds and it provides care for the terminally ill. The problem is that countries such as India, struggle to provide their people with the healthcare that they need. Instead, the Indian people are subject to many illnesses that aren’t properly treated due to a lack of healthcare in areas like the slums. This lack of healthcare has lead to many outbreaks of many diseases which has lead to many deaths. A lack of doctors to treat the sick, the government struggling to provide healthcare, and people dying due to diseases – all reasons why there is a public healthcare crisis in India.

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In India, the lack of doctors has become a real problem in the country. According to Debobrat Ghose, India has a doctor to patient ratio of 1 to 1000. This means that there is one doctor for every 1000 patients. India also has a urgent need for nurses as the there is a shortage of over 2 million nurses in India. These numbers are pitiful considering how many people are in rural India and in the slums of India.

These lack of doctors in India has lead to people being misdiagnosed, treated wrongly, and in some cases even die to the confusion that occur in understaffed clinics. They make these mistakes and are confused because these doctors aren’t very experience and this lack of experience leads to mass confusions and stress for these doctors which leads to them making mistakes in their diagnosis, treatments, and sometimes even in surgery.  Things could be looking up in India because there are plans to build 2,500 hospitals which could improve the doctor and nurse shortage in India. (Dr. V.K. Paul)

The government’s lack of assistance when it comes to healthcare is a key reason why the public health system is so horrific. The main reason the government struggles to provide healthcare for its people is because they don’t spend enough money on healthcare. India only spends less than 1.04% of its GDP, which is growing at about seven percent, on public healthcare (Golechha). When India spends this little amount of money on it’s public healthcare system, it is bound that people will struggle due to this. If India were to put a little more money into to their healthcare system, conditions would so much Joyful.

The lack of Public healthcare also hurts the Indian economy even though the economy is growing. If India would have a decent healthcare system and have most people in the country healthy, then their economy would be boosted by more people being healthy and working. Right now though, it’s the opposite. India is losing more than 6% of GDP due to premature deaths and illnesses that could have been treated had the healthcare system been up to par with the rest of the world (Golechha). The good news is that India’s political parties are now putting healthcare as its number 1 priority and issue and are dedicated to solving this problem.

In India- diseases are widespread, easy to contract, and a difficulty to treat these diseases- which leads to many deaths due to the poor healthcare conditions in India. Diseases are contracted very easily in parts of India. For example, Tuberculosis spreads very quickly in Indian hospitals due to the fact that there is a lack of knowledge among the healthcare providers about disease control. Healthcare providers in India It is believed among healthcare providers in Indian hospitals and clinics that the transmission of these disease in not preventable and eventually will happen (Aggarwal). Even some doctors contract diseases from their patients because of the poor sanitation and no knowledge of preventing spread of disease. These doctors with diseases can transmit disease to the other non-infected patients which can lead to increases mortality rates in Hospitals(Aggarwal). However, this problem can be very easily solved if these health providers were informed and had knowledge of different methods used in the U.S. and Europe that could prevent disease spreading. People having untreated diseases and defects can also lead to physiological problems in people. For example, In Behind the Beautiful Forevers, the character Fatima has a birth defect which affects her leg but could probably be treated. She wanted to be noticed so she put excessive amounts of makeup on to hide her defect. She also was very careless, which led to her drowning her unwanted child. Her psychological issue led to her demise because of the amount of attention that she needed.

If you contract cancer in India, your probability of surviving will probably be very low. This is because most hospitals in India are not equipped with the necessary medical equipment and a knowledgeable staff to treat these cancer patients. India has high rates of cancer; about 800,000 people in India have some type of cancer (Ali and Wani). There is also about 300,000 people in India that have died due have a cancer.(Ali and Wami). This is due to poor knowledge of cancer and poor treatment of it. The most common types of cancer in India are skin, lung, breast, stomach, and liver cancer. (Ali and Wani). These are some of the most deadliest cancers and these cancers are probably the reason why there is such a big mortality rate in cancer patients in India.

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Although all these problems are extremely important when talking about the Public healthcare crisis in India, the Indian government is actually starting to attempt to fix the problems with the public healthcare. India is planning to build 2,500 hospitals which would add over 2.5 million jobs (Dr. V.K. Paul). These increase in hospitals will make basic health needs more accessible and would put less stress on doctors because of the amount of new hospitals that will be built. This project is still years away from being completed, so for now India will have to make due with what they have and either increase the healthcare budget or just wait until these new hospitals are completed. India will also have to increase the training of doctors so that they are qualified to deal with the basic situations because some doctors aren’t even qualified to be practicing medicine. India will also have to clean up the sanitation and disease control that leads to multiple diseases being spread throughout hospitals and clinics. To do these things though, India will have to dramatically increase the spending on healthcare before they even think about fixing these issues that they face.

In conclusion, india does have a public healthcare crisis because of a lack of doctors to treat the sick, the government struggling to provide healthcare, and people dying due to diseases. Hopefully someday India will be develop their healthcare system well and all the people in India will be beneficiaries of the health system.

Work cited

• Aggarwal, Ashutosh. “Tuberculosis transmission at healthcare facilities in India.” Lung India, vol. 26, no. 2, 2009, p. 33. Academic OneFile, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A196350408/GPS?u=cchs_main&sid=GPS&xid=dbd34071. Accessed 15 May 2019.
• Ali, Prof. Imran & Wani, Waseem & Saleem, Kishwar & , Correspondence. (2011). Cancer Scenario in India with Future Perspectives. Cancer Therapy. 8. 56-70.
• Boo, Katherine. Behind the Beautiful Forevers. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2014.
• BioSpectrum Asia, 26 Mar. 2019. Academic OneFile, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A580114847/GPS?u=cchs_main&sid=GPS&xid=ba054e64. Accessed 15 May 2019.
• Ghose, Debobrat. “India Suffering Critical Shortage of Doctors: NMC Bill May Finally Give Rural Poor Access to Affordable Healthcare.” Firstpost, 3 Jan. 2018, www.firstpost.com/india/india-suffering-critical-shortage-of-doctors-nmc-bill-may-finally-give-rural-poor-access-to-affordable-healthcare-4285483.html.
• Golechha, Mahaveer. “Healthcare agenda for the Indian government.” Indian Journal of Medical Research, vol. 141, no. 2, 2015, p. 151. Academic OneFile, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A411563958/GPS?u=cchs_main&sid=GPS&xid=a18b37fa. Accessed 15 May 2019.
• Healthcare in India – Miles to Go.” Asian Hospital & Healthcare Management, 1 May 2012. General OneFile, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A308557231/GPS?u=cchs_main&sid=GPS&xid=91d0a5bb. Accessed 15 May 2019.
• India to have 2,500 new hospitals in 5 years, creating 2.5 million jobs: Dr V K Paul.” Plus Company Updates, 8 May 2019. General OneFile, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A584901354/GPS?u=cchs_main&sid=GPS&xid=4f732be8. Accessed 15 May 2019.