India’s Healthcare Ambitions | Mint Explains | Mint

0:00 how many times have you heard the phrase health is wealth more than we can count on our fingers but after living through a pandemic that phrase has taken on a whole new meaning it's no longer just about avoiding junk food or hitting the gym it's about having a Health Care system that can take care of us when we need it the most health has been thrust into the Forefront of public discourse since the onset of the covid-19 pandemic This Global crisis has shown us that Healthcare infrastructure encompasses a wide range of measures from effective Health Care delivery to improving the quality of life while India has achieved significant Public Health Milestones

0:46 such as the eradication of polio and neonatal tetanus Universal Health Care is still a distant dream with a health expenditure of only 2.1 percent of GDP India lags behind all other G20 Nations and its Healthcare System is largely financed out out of pocket by the citizens let's take a closer look at the relevant factors that dominate India's Health Care system neglected infrastructure India's Health infrastructure faces several challenges including a shortage of trained medical professionals and a stark rural urban divide India has one of the smallest doctor to population and nurse to population ratios indicating a

1:34 lack of trained medical professionals to serve the population for every 10 000 people India has only 7.27 doctors which is below the world health organizations recommended minimum of 10. the progress on health infrastructure has been uneven with 82 percent shortfall in pediatricians and 80 percent of general physicians in rural community health centers additionally what's even more alarming is that fewer than the half of Primary Health Centers function Round the Clock further highlighting the deficiencies in India's Health infrastructure organ scarcity another Factor leading to poor health

2:20 infrastructure is that the organ donation rates in India remain low with only 15 561 organ transplants performed last year despite 49 745 Indians still waiting for an organ replacement the country has an organ donation rate of about 0.52 per million population while Spain leads the world with close to 47 donors per million population Kerala Delhi and Maharashtra have the most organ pledges with Kerala leading the number with 1 lakh thirty thousand nine hundred and ninety two pledges anti-microbial resistance threat apart

3:05 from this anti-microbial resistance that is AMR poses a significant threat to Public Health and India has one of the highest burdens of infections driven by such resistance several bacteria viruses and fungi are no longer responding to the existing medicines making infections harder to treat only 43 percent of pneumonia samples containing one particular pathogen in India could be treated with the first line of antibiotics in the year 2021 compared to 65 percent in 2016 a similar Trend was seen in E coli infections tackling this threat requires investments in new class

3:50 antibiotics but India has been falling woefully shot moreover little data is available on the funding allocated to AMR research vaccination did you know that India's immunization program successfully vaccinates around 26.7 million newborns and 29 million pregnant women annually India's well-established vaccine infrastructure enabled the country to produce administer and Export covid-19 vaccines rapidly a study published in Lancet even showed that India's immunization program helped prevent over 4.2 million deaths in the country government's role did you know that

4:36 around 63 percent of all Health expenses in India are born out of pocket by households this puts an enormous burden on families especially in a country where poverty is still prevalent thankfully the government has launched several health insurance schemes to help Elevate this burden one of the most significant of this schemes is ayushman Bharat which was launched in the year 2018. it has already registered over 370 million users and has provided financial assistance for 43.4 million Hospital admissions worth 51 749 crore rupees despite its success ayushman Bharat still faces some

5:22 challenges in its implementation one major issue is the under utilization of allocated funds Additionally the concentration of health services in urban areas the lack of awareness about the scheme and the growing population are also significant roadblocks overall ayushman Bharat has been a critical step in making Healthcare more accessible and affordable for millions of Indians as the country continues to grow and face new challenges it's essential to invest in a robust Health Care system that can cater to the needs of every citizen foreign