Why India Needs To Beef Up Healthcare Investment

Recently, Henk Bekedam, WHO Representative to India, said “We know that nations need a healthy population to prosper. Stepping up investment in public healthcare is pivotal to sustaining India’s economic growth. Investing in health is investing in India’s growth story.”

India's public spending on health is "little over" one per cent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Given India's health policy, which aims to provide accessible, affordable and equitable quality health care to the marginalised and vulnerable sections, the public spending on healthcare is abysmally low.

Raju Khubchandani, Director- Department of Pediatrics at Jaslok Hospital & Research Centre told BW Businessworld, “Indeed we are a country of paradoxes while rural India grapples with malnutrition, the urban middle class is poised to see an epidemic of obesity”.

While India has the fastest growing population and an ambitious growth aspiration, it has always had a disproportionately small health budget. In 2015, this shrank further to 1.2 per cent of the GDP, one of the stingiest in the world. The Indian public healthcare lacks scale, funds, human resources, and training. Participation of government agencies, international organizations, and NGOs to this cause is paramount.

An article published in The Lancet on June 26 reveals the tragedy of India’s healthcare system in more objective terms. It evaluates the role of private players in the healthcare system of countries. The article brackets India with Nigeria in the group of nations with a “dominant private sector”.

A higher financial allocation will ease some of the chronic shortages but government healthcare staff also needs to do a lot better. This requires a significant improvement in the quality of state administration which is responsible for the entire public-facing structure from the primary health centre to the district hospital.