India’s Ministry of Health was established in 1947, after independence. In 1983, the National Health Policy was introduced, which aimed at universal healthcare by 2000. Universal healthcare means that all the people have access to health services, when and where they need it, without facing any hardships or financial obstacles.

Healthcare is mainly administered by the states. The Constitution of India tasks the respective states to provide healthcare to all the people residing in the state. However, there was disparity of medical coverage between rural areas and urban ones. Hence, the National Rural Health Mission was established in 2005 to improve the healthcare situation in the poorest of regions.

Fast forward to 2021, and there are still many loopholes in the healthcare industry, that need to be tackled effectively. There is great discrepancy between qualities of medical treatment in several regions ranging from urban to semi-urban to rural areas.

Accessibility or rather, the lack of it is a huge problem, deterring people from accessing healthcare. Physical reach is one of the major factors. Physical reach is defined as, “the ability to enter a healthcare facility within 5kms from the place of residence or work.” A study in rural areas found that only 37% of people were able to access IP facilities within a 5km distance, and 68% were able to access out-patient facilities.

Even if a healthcare facility is physically accessible, what is the quality of care that it offers? Many PHCs i.e. Primary health centers lack basic infrastructural facilities such as beds, wards, toilets, drinking water facilities, clean labor rooms for delivery and regular electricity.

Any discussion about healthcare systems, should take into account the central workforce, all the healthcare workers in this field.  However, the workforce is not distributed optimally, with most preferring to work in areas where infrastructure and facilities for family life and growth are higher.

Most of the health expenditures are accounted by the private sector. The private sector gives medical treatment in an efficient way, but also at a higher price. State run public sector is still the only option for rural areas of the country. It is common knowledge that private sector is a very powerful player in the healthcare sector. Huge amounts of healthcare costs lead to impoverishment and financial loss. Although, medical insurances are available, not many people have these and most of the treatment cost comes from the pockets of the households. The public sector offers healthcare at low or no cost, but is perceived as unreliable.

The solution to the problems of affordability of healthcare is to launch local and national campaigns. The percentage of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) that is diverted towards healthcare should be increased. This in turn, will help boost the infrastructure of the public healthcare sector and attract more of the workforce towards these areas. This will motivate people to go to government hospitals to seek treatment.

Medical and health insurance programs should be rolled out, and awareness campaigns should be organized so that the target audience understands the directives of the government schemes. They say that the youth is the future of tomorrow. Keeping this saying in mind, healthcare students should be educated about the ground reality and economic and social issues in various parts of the country and the world. This will help them make conscious decisions in the future and hopefully bring in a realization of the enormity of the situation and the need to confront it as soon as possible.

To receive treatment and medical care is every person’s basic right, and as a nation, we need to take a stand against the problems in the healthcare sector and fight against all that is harmful to humanity.