-TheWire.in * According to the Union health ministry’s new Rural Health Statistics report, for 2020-2021, primary health centres have a surplus of doctors. * This could be true – although there are doubts about whether the report included the number of doctors on transitory, ad hoc appointments as well. * The report fails to capture the qualitative aspects of doctors’ availability at PHCs, including a hidden problem motivated by the absence of sufficient...

-Newsclick.in The high healthcare costs were expected to be addressed through the introduction of health insurance by the Union government, but it covers less than 30% of hospital charges leaving a heavy financial burden on the poor. Health outcomes have remained grossly unequal, with India's dalits and adivasis living shorter lives of poorer quality, as per a recent paper published by Oxfam India. Private infrastructure now accounts for nearly 62% of India's...

-The Hindu ‘Healthcare as an optional public service’ would ensure the legal right to receive free, quality care in a public institution The lingering COVID-19 crisis is a good time to revive an issue that is, oddly, slow to come to life in India — universal health care (UHC). Meanwhile, UHC has become a well-accepted objective of public policy around the world. It has even been largely realised in many countries, not...

On Janaushadhi Diwas this year (i.e., March 7th, 2022), Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi stated that the poor and the middle-class benefited from the 'Jan Aushadhi Kendras' that were set up to provide generic drugs at affordable prices. He said that the poor and the middle class saved around Rs.13,000 crore through these stores during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the wake of COVID 19 crisis, the 'Bureau of Pharma PSUs of India'...

-Down to Earth The arduous journeys of those who migrate for medical treatment in India Marta kya na karta (One can do anything when pushed to the wall),” says 40-year-old Rita Kumari from Supaul district of north Bihar. At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic was tightening its grip across the country Rita and her daughter, Sandhya, had to undertake multiple trips to hospitals in Nepal and Uttar Pradesh, before reaching the All...