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The healthcare sector in India is booming owing to several reasons. One impetus is provided by continuous growth of population. An improved healthcare in India has contributed to the growth of population by significantly reducing infant mortality rate, together with the coming of a middle class in the country who spends a large part of their income in healthcare. Also now days, women equally participate in the workforce along with men. Subsequently, it further boosting the purchasing power of Indian households. Due to rising income, today a large group of Indians can afford to buy western medicines. Several lifestyle diseases such as hypertension, cancer, and diabetes, are mostly common today. Even in the next some decades, lifestyle diseases are expected to grow at a faster rate than infectious diseases in India, which will result in an increase in cost per treatment. Medical tourism is one of the major reasons we can relate to the growth of the Indian healthcare sector. India has become a popular destination for medical tourism is largely due to the coming of state-of-the-art private hospitals and diagnostic facilities, and relatively low cost treatment expense compared to western countries. Healthcare in India is marked by two sides. On the one hand, the country provides high-quality medical care to middle-class Indians and medical tourists, and on the other hand, the majority of the population lives—a country whose residents have limited or no access to quality medical care. Today only 25% of the Indian population has access to western (allopathic) medicine, which are available mainly in urban areas, while many of the rural poor have no other way but to rely on alternative forms of treatment, such as Ayurvedic medicine, acupuncture etc. Healthcare in India is still far from satisfaction. Barring a few exceptions like All India Institute of Medical Studies (AIIMS), other public health facilities are inefficient to meet the demands of patients. Especially in rural areas, good healthcare facilities are totally absent. Staffs are inadequate in rural medical centers and also medical equipments are much outdated. Such situations are largely due to the poor infrastructure in our country. The absence of medical insurance in the India healthcare sector is also one of the reasons for the poor healthcare. Needless to say, the main responsibility for public health funding is attached with the state governments, which provide about 80% of the whole funding. The remaining 15% fund is provided by central government mostly through national health programs. For example, the government has specially launched the National Rural Health Mission 2005-2012 in April 2005 with the aim to provide effective healthcare to India’s rural population, with a special focus on 18 states who have low public health infrastructure. In some cases, the government is partnering with the private sector to provide low cost treatment. For instance, the centre had launched Yashaswini Insurance scheme in Karnataka, together with the state government in 2002 for poor farmers, to cover all the expense in case of major surgical operations. Continue Reading for more information about Healthcare in India.
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