India’s healthcare system faces acute pressures from the high population. There is an urgent need to build better healthcare facilities and make education accessible to all.
According to data, India has 1.4 beds per 1,000 people. There is 1 doctor per 1,445 people, and 1.7 nurses per 1,000 people. Over 75% of healthcare infrastructure is concentrated in metro cities, where only 27% of the total population resides. This means that the remaining 73% of the Indian population lacks even basic medical facilities.
Causes for poor healthcare in India
The reasons for poor healthcare are :
- Lack of Infrastructure : There is a lack of well-equipped and trained medical staff and the rate of building and training medical staff remains slow. For a long time, medical colleges could only be built if 5 acres of land was available. This prevented building of hospitals in rural areas with lesser land availability.
- Shortage of Trained Manpower : There is a severe lack of doctors, nurses and paramedical staff. As mentioned earlier, this is even more acutely lacking in rural areas where most of the Indian population resides.
- High Patient Load : There is a high load on the already under-equipped and fragile health infrastructure. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, one could observe the high crisis that emerged in the health sector with shortages of beds and staff as well as medical and oxygen supplies.
- Expensive Private Treatment : Due to overburdened and inefficient public health sector, people often have to take recourse to more expensive and unaffordable private health. 65% of health expenditure is made from the patient’s pocket only.
How You Can Help?
You can help the needy and the underprivileged gain access to education by joining FIkrah and volunteering with us, Our mission is to provide necessary free health checkups to all poor and needy children. Join our cause and make a difference!