-The Telegraph New Delhi: Public health activists have asked the Union health ministry to reject a demand from an association of Indian doctors to exempt hospitals and clinics with accreditation from proposed rules to regulate the costs of services charged to patients. The Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA, or People's Health Movement) has opposed a demand from the Indian Medical Association to the health ministry seeking exemption for accredited hospitals from the Clinical...

-The Hindu India spends less of its GDP on health than some of the world’s poorest countries’ Every government hospital serves an estimated 61,000 people in India, with one bed for every 1833 people, new official data shows. In undivided Andhra Pradesh, every government hospital serves over 3 lakh patients while in Bihar, there is only one bed for every 8800 people. Union Minister for Health J.P. Nadda released the National Health Profile...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Fifteen years since farmers in the state's Marathwada and Vidarbha regions started taking their own lives, the state on Friday announced the first psycho-social health plan to check the epidemic of suicides. The plan hinges on community health workers — the accredited social health activists (ASHAs) and anganwadi workers — carrying out a questionnaire-based screening test to assess the mental health of farmers. "We carried out an audit...

-The Indian Express New Delhi: India is facing a debilitating shortage of health specialists, including in basic disciplines such as surgery, gynaecology and paediatrics, statistics compiled by the National Health Mission show. Rural community health centres face over 82 per cent shortage in surgeons, physicians and peadiatricians — 82.5%, 82.6% and 82.2% respectively — and have only 23.4 per cent of the obstetricians and gynaecologists they require. The story in urban centres is...

-The Indian Express The tragedy of several women dying after undergoing sterilisation operations in the Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh has once again thrown up uncomfortable questions around India's population programme. Although the cases are being investigated and the exact cause of the deaths has not been ascertained, the incident brings to light the abysmal conditions in which women are compelled to accept government-provided contraception. India is a signatory to an agreement at...