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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Unhealthy at 65: India has 76% shortfall in govt doctors-Subodh Varma

-The Times of India

After spending around 1% of gross domestic product (GDP) on health in the past five years, the government is proposing an increase in public spending by half a percentage point to make it 1.58% for the coming five years (2012-17) under the 12th Plan. 

This is what the draft chapter on health in the Plan document says. Health experts and activists are up in arms at this meagre increase because even the Planning Commission's high-level expert group and the steering committee on drafting the Plan had suggested at least 2.5% of GDP as the public health spend. 

But, what happens with low spending? The Planning Commission's own analysis of the state of the country's healthcare system reveals the rot within. 

The latest available rural health statistics for 2011 show a shocking shortfall of human resources, be it doctors, nurses or other healthcare personnel. According to the Planning Commission's draft, the country's government-run healthcare system is hamstrung because the number of doctors is short of the target by a jaw-dropping 76%, there are 53% fewer nurses , specialist doctors are short by 88%, radiographers are short by 85% and laboratory technicians are short by 80%. 

What the shortage of personnel means is that in many states where infrastructure is largely present, the absence of doctors and nurses renders the whole facility meaningless. Thus, Gujarat has only a 5% shortfall of community health centres but only 76 out of 1,220 specialists required are available. In Odisha, there are 377 CHCs although only 327 are required as per norms. But of 1,570 specialists required, only 438 are at work.