India’s Health Sector
India is currently in a transition state in terms of health. Though the last decade has been accompanied by tremendous development, the global Covid-19 pandemic has seen India suffer both in the health sector and economically. India has a triple burden of diseases, including infectious diseases, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) linked with lifestyle changes and pandemics. Their health infrastructure is overstretched and requires strengthening to face the twenty-first century (Chokshi, 2016). India’s poor health care condition can be attributed to various factors.
Communicable diseases are a major health problem even in the coming decades threatening national and international health security. NCD’s contribute to 60% of India’s deaths, with 80% of those being from heart diseases, cancer, diabetes, and chronic pulmonary diseases (Narain, 2016). The maternal mortality ratio and infant mortality rate (IMR) are also alarmingly high. The IMR in 2015 was 40 per 1000 births against the global average of 33.6 per 1000 live births. Great disparities between the rich and the poor in accessing health services also exist in the region.
Currently, India is ranked at 150 in the global health care index with an index of 66.21. The high population of 1.3 billion makes it difficult to administer proper health care in India. High numbers of people living below the poverty level also impact their health sector. The Government of India has made attempts to provide the basic needs to the citizens of the nation. However, millions of people still lack access to basic needs as malnutrition is rampant, and vaccination coverage inadequate.
USAID’s health programs in India prevent up to two million deaths per year, a fifth of the nation’s mortality burden. USAID partners with India’s national government, the private sector, and civil society to provide quality health care to poor and vulnerable households. On 2020 April 2, the World Bank approved one billion dollars to be sent to India’s Covid-19 Emergency Response and Health Systems Preparedness Project. This is the Bank’s largest health sector contribution ever made to India (Tiwari et al., 2020). During the pandemic, the country’s richest person, Mukesh Ambani, through his Reliance Foundation, set up India’s first Covid-19 health center with 100 beds in Mumbai’s Seven Hills Hospital.
References
Chokshi, M., Patil, B., Khanna, R., Neogi, S., Sharma, J., Paul, V., and Zodpey, S. (2016) Health Systems in India https://www.nature.com/articles/jp2016184
Narain, J. (2016) Public health challenges in India: Seizing the opportunities https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4799645/
Tiwari, S., Kumar, S., and Guleria, K. (2020) Outbreak Trends of Coronavirus Disease in India https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/disaster-medicine-and-public-health-preparedness/article/outbreak-trends-of-coronavirus-covid19-in-india-a-prediction/76090B13B7FDD2C96920A81CAF608264 gg