-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...

-Scroll.in The pandemic has starkly revealed that India has failed to provide even basic health-care to the majority of its citizens. As the gravest health emergency to overwhelm the globe in a century continues to rage, the unbridled Covid-19 virus has laid bare the abject failure of India’s health system to secure even elementary levels of health-care for its people. Everything fell short disastrously, sometimes catastrophically: hospital beds, doctors, nurses, testing kits, medical...

-Deccan Herald India is not doing enough to protect its youngest citizens. According to ‘Vital Statistics of India based on Civil Registration System 2014’ report, around 1.89 lakh infants died in 2014 and around 80,190 of them were girls. Though there was a reduction in the number of infant deaths - 1.87 lakh infants died the previous year, including 80,609 girls – the drop was very marginal. Several of India’s...

-The Hindu Despite a mountain of evidence testifying to the huge toll of suicide in our youth and the knowledge of effective interventions to prevent suicide, there remains no coordinated effort to address suicide as a public health issue in India. The recent suicides of three young women students in a medical college in Tamil Nadu citing the appalling conditions in their institution add to the mounting toll of suicides among young...

-The Indian Express   Reduce Centrally sponsored schemes, specify their objectives and timelines.    A Niti Aayog taskforce chaired by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has apparently recommended that 25 per cent of the funds under Centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) be made available to states as untied monies. If this recommendation is accepted, states would receive a total of Rs 42,000 crore during 2015-16 itself. This recommendation should be viewed in...