-The Economic Times Drug companies paid as little as 50,000 as compensation to families of volunteers who died during clinical trials for new medicines last year, leading to sharp criticism about the paltry sums being handed out and growing clamour among health groups for more stringent guidelines on new drug trials.  According to government data accessed by a healthcare activist through an RTI query, Germany's Fresenius Kabi paid 50,000 each to the...

-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...

-The Times of India Indians are not only bad organ donors, but also averse to accepting brain death as the end of human life.  doctors say most Indian families think their near and dear ones have a chance to recover till their hearts beat.  This slow acceptance of brain death — patients who have suffered complete and irreversible loss of all brain functions and are clinically and legally dead — is seriously affecting...

-The Economic Times India has some of the best quaternary and tertiary care in the world and is gradually acquiring a name for itself even in the field of 'medical tourism'. Secondary care is still a significant challenge, but even in several smaller towns and district headquarters, there is a growing supply of maternity homes and multi-speciality secondary care facilities. At all of these levels of care, given the large disease burden...

-The Hindu Victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy have welcomed the Supreme Court’s directive to the Union and Madhya Pradesh governments on providing access to better healthcare to them. “The court’s directive to provide health booklets and smart cards to victims is something that most of us here need,” said Hamida Bi. According to Hamida, neither the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC) nor the State government’s Gas Relief hospital maintained a...