Over the past 15 years, performance-based financing has been implemented in an increasing number of developing countries,
particularly in Africa, as a means of improving health worker performance. Scaling up to national implementation in Burundi and
Rwanda has encouraged proponents of performance-based financing to view it as more than a financing mechanism, but increasingly
as a strategic tool to reform the health sector. We resist such a notion on the grounds that results-based and economically driven

Irrational drug combos flood market, but the regulator does little to remove them. Read this special report by Down To Earth.

English libel law was used to threaten me, but I had to speak out, says Peter Wilmshurst, the cardiologist sued for voicing safety concerns.

Pakistan’s Lady Health Workers’ programme has trained over 1,00,000 women to provide community health services in rural areas. Not only has the programme revitalised the primary health care system, it has also helped overcome the gendered division of public and private space that is a major obstacle to women’s access to basic services, including education, and employment opportunities. However, there are a number of shortcomings that need government intervention to ensure that it fulfils its aims.

A shortage of doctors in rural India cannot be resolved by casual announcements. (Editorial)

A close examination of the ongoing debates on universal access to healthcare, both in national and international fora, reveals a plurality of ideological perspectives and motivations on how universal access can be achieved. This statement, issued at the end of a recent meeting of “participant observers”, brings their insights and concerns about universal access to healthcare.

The Planning Commission’s High Level Expert Group has given its provisional progress report on developing a framework for universal health coverage. Its mandate is to suggest a strategy for universal health coverage rather than a universal healthcare system. The latter would be geared to a progressive socialisation of healthcare based on human rights.

A child with chest pain or tics, a toddler who is limping, a 12-year-old girl with abdominal pain or headaches, an infant whose fever does not respond to antibiotics — these are age-old challenges that pediatricians face.

In this paper, we address the issues of shortage and maldistribution of health personnel in southeast Asia in the context of the international trade in health services. Although there is no shortage of health workers in the region overall, when analysed separately, five low-income countries have some deficit.

Commonsense, logic and clarity provide an ageless quality to Ayurveda knowledge for health care. Ayurvedic institutions along with its teachers, students and practitioners are in despair – a crisis similar to that faced by contemporary Western medicine compatriots. We envision vaidya-scientists,