-Down to Earth   Despite high cost of treatment, private sector still takes care of 80 per cent of all outpatient care and about 60 per cent of all inpatient care A study on healthcare costs in India has reaffirmed what everyone knows-that private hospitals are not affordable for the common man. Getting treatment in these hospitals is at least 20 times costlier than the healthcare provided in district government hospitals, reveals the...

-The Hindu     The Kerala government has not learnt anything from the Attappady tragedy. Nutrition levels of women and children, most of them tribals, continue to remain dismal in the area At the Agali Community Health Centre in Attappady, Palakkad district, Kerala, Kavitha tends to her four-year-old child lying listlessly on the cot, critically ill. The doctor says the child is severely malnourished. He also says there are eight such infants and children,...

-PTI Of the 62 patients who lost sight in an eye, 44 were operated in camps at Balod, 4 in Durg and 14 in Mahasamund Raipur: Chhattisgarh government on Wednesday admitted in the state assembly that as many as 62 people were left blind in one eye after they underwent procedures at the cataract operation camps held for last two years in the state. Of the 62 patients who lost sight in an...

-Frontine The finalised chapter on health in the 12th Plan document envisages a large role for the private sector in health care. A chapter on health prepared for the draft 12th Five Year Plan Document in July received a lot of criticism for its limited understanding of universal health care and its diluted commitment to increase public expenditure on health. If the revised version is any indication, there has not been...

-Outlook Jammu:  For the second time in a row, Jammu and Kashmir has emerged as the number one state this year for providing better primary health care service, achieving 43 per cent infant mortality lower than the national average of 47 per cent. "The rate of infant mortality in Jammu and Kashmir has come down to 43 per cent which is better than the national average of 47 per cent," an official...