NEW DELHI: Appreciating the country's commitment towards universalising health coverage for the people, health economist Robert Yates has said the country needs to increase its public spending on health either by health insurance schemes or taxation.
From the US to China, South Africa to India, governments and citizens are engaged in an active debate about how best to protect people from catastrophic health care costs while ensuring access to health care of adequate quality.
Good health is essential to human welfare and to sustained economic and social development. WHO's Member States have set themselves the target of developing their health financing systems to ensure that all people can use health services, while being protected against financial hardship associated with paying for them.
The absence of first level healthcare facilities and the high cost of treating even routine illnesses are the immediate problems in the existing healthcare system as also the fact that high costs do not necessarily imply reliability of treatment. No insurance scheme or altruistic healthcare providers can address these problems. The solution lies in strengthening the public healthcare system.
Hospitals in India are generally lackadaisical in following stringent patient safety and infection-control standards.
AN epidemiological study on the emergence of new antibiotic resistance mechanism in bacteria in India, Pakistan and the United Kingdom was recently published in Lancet, the medical journal.
SHILLONG, Oct 5: In a series of meeting held between the Meghalaya Chief Secretary and other senior officials of Finance, Health & Family Welfare, Education and Industries and Commerce departments since yesterday, a delegation of Asian Development Bank (ADB) has identified some areas on a priority basis.
SHILLONG: The comprehensive State Health Policy is expected to be finalised by the end of this year.
"We are committed to finalise the Health Policy at the earliest. Probably, by the end of this year the policy would be ready for implementation," Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma told reporters after attending a workshop for a detailed deliberation on the Health Policy here on Monday.
Pune City anchor: Scheme benefits 6,091 people from below poverty line category; Rs 2.33 crore spent so far on beneficiaries
The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) has received a good response in the Pune district due to the coordinated efforts of Pune zilla parishad, New India Insurance Company and Dedicated Healthcare Services TPA Ltd.
The enrolment of the poor in the flagship health insurance scheme, the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana in its third year of operation does not show any sign of it covering all the poor by 2012. This article estimates the proportion of the eligible below the poverty line families enrolled for the scheme and the fraction of those hospitalised who are covered.
