Main Points about Indian Healthcare System

As I gave a snapshot of my work experience in India in a previous blogpost, I thought it might be helpful to give a basic outline of the healthcare system in India and in the particular state that I did my work experience in.

Few Facts about India:

• The World's largest demoracy
• 2nd most populous in the world (~1.3 billion - UN 2012)
• country divided into 28 states and 7 union territories
• GDP = 1841.7 billion dollars (http://www.tradingeconomics.com/india/gdp, DEC 2013)
• World-class recognition in IT, bio-technology, and space
• Largest English speaking nation in the world
• World's 2nd largest pool of scientists and engineers (http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/india-has-the-second-largest-pool-of-scientists/article4445223.ece DEC 2013)

Healthcare in India: 

• ~4.1% of GDP spent on healthcare sector (compared to 9.6% in the UK and 17.9% in the USA) (http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jun/30/healthcare-spending-world-country DEC 2013)
• The healthcare sector in India is the reponsibility of the state, local and the central government
• However, mainly focused on by the state
• The central government is responsible mainly for:
• Healthcare in the Union territories.
• The development and regulation of national healthcare standards and regulations
• Linking states with funding agencies
• Sponsoring schemes for implementation of procedures by the state government
• Healthcare has to be paid for by the patients 
• It is one of the largest service sectors in India
• Healthcare is widely available and is the most affordable to middle class and above. The poorer working class may find it difficult to fund any major procedures and sometimes even for basic healthcare
• The Twelfth 5-Year Plan 2012-17 (pg 19 of 881, Government of India) - Outlines key "strategy challenges" that the Government of India would like to tackle; one of the main points is to better preventative and curative healthcare in the country:

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Better Preventive and Curative Health Care
India's health indicators are not improving as fast as other socio-economic indicators. Good healthcare is perceived to be either unavailable or unaffordable. How can we improve healthcare conditions, both curative and preventive, especially relating to women and children?

http://12thplan.gov.in/displayforum_list.php

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