-The Indian Express Raised budgets are no guarantee of improved healthcare. With a new government in the offing, all suggested agendas for health are talking of an increase in health budgets and the fact that at 1 per cent of the GDP, government spending on public health in India is one of the lowest in the world; the rest is out of pocket expenditure. The US is a prime example of the...

-Down to Earth Infant deaths in West Bengal’s only super specialty hospital underscrore an urgent need to improve healthcare facilities in rural areas SUPER SPECIALTY B C Roy Children’s Hospital in Kolkata looks like a refugee camp. A sit-out for families inside the complex is roofed with plastic in bright shades of blue, red and green. The sheets protect families from the regular monsoon downpour. The not-so-lucky ones huddle under buildings when...

-Outlook This could be the UPA’s worst cut to its beloved aam admi. Healthcare has virtually been handed over to privateers. Not For Those Who Need It Most Govt seems to have abandoned healthcare to the private sector Diagnosing An Ailing Republic     70 per cent of India still lives in the villages, where only two per cent of qualified allopathic doctors are available     Due to lack of access to medical care, rural India...

-The Times of India It's raining sops for the poor. The government is making treatment of people below the poverty line suffering from mental disorders and diabetes free at government or public super speciality hospitals like AIIMS. Yesterday, TOI had reported the government's plan to gift cell phones to the poor. In the maiden endorsement of India's swelling burden of patients suffering from mental disorders, the ministry has included it under the Rashtriya...

The Planning Commission has received a sweeping set of recommendations that proposes free health care and medicines for diverse needs to all Indian citizens, irrespective of economic means. Whether or to what extent the proposals — described as “even bigger” than the UPA’s blockbuster job scheme — will be accepted will depend on the political and executive leadership. If the government throws its weight behind the initiative, it will effectively mean...