Health in India

Hello party people! :D

Let me tell you a story to chill the bones and it’s not the song Dance of the Death by Iron Maiden.. :D

Recently, a sting operation had uncovered the selling of medical post graduate seats in India. Can you believe that? I was quite shocked.. No, not because I came to know this for the first time that seats were being sold, but that the price they were being sold at, and that seat bookings were done for the future as far as 2016!!

CNN-IBN covered it live the other day.. These guys went in with a camera and asked these hospital people if they could get a seat in PG in their college. And these guys happily told them that they could get whatever they wanted.. Every department had their rate like some Continental Restaurant Menu card! Pediatrics, Radiology, Medicine, Surgery, etc.. Up to ₹2 crores!! 2 freaking crores.. 2,00,00,000!! That is ₹20million!! Approximately US$ 363,899! Donno what they'd be serving for desserts though! And that's for one seat.. And then perhaps there's some provision for early bird prizes, too! I mean bookings have be done for seats up till 2016!! Advanced booking… Something like a pre-release sale or something. Can you imagine how lucrative this business of seat selling is? And the best thing is that they won't give a receipt.. So it's tax free!! :D

And then there was a lot of heated arguments of what the problem is.. And I think the problem comes to just few of the following very important things:

1. Doctor-Patient Ratio: India has an abysmal, to say the least, Doctor-Patient ratio. In my last post titled "Satyamev Jayate" I had given the data of how for every doctor there is 1953 patients in India as of 2012. Thus, the number of doctors are very less..

2. Medical Institutes: The number of Medical institutes are very less. There are 355 Medical Colleges in India.. Out of which 161 are Government colleges and 194 are Private colleges.. With even full turnover of doctors at 44250 doctors per year from these 355 colleges the doctor patient ratio wont come down enough.. But that of course never happens..

3. Expenditure on Health: The % of GDP used in health services in India is 3.9% as of 2011!

Total %GDP expenditure on Health in India

 And Government just uses 1% of GDP in health services.

%GDP expenditure on Health by Government of India

 The above 2 tables show the data compared to some other countries..

Now why won't there be corruption!

Every student after completing their MBBS want to get into an MD/MS/Diploma course.. The total number of seats are 21282.. So, of the 44250 MBBS students per year, only 21282 students get into a post graduate course! Not even 50%!! And the expenditure on health by India is also very low!

What can be the solution to the problem?

Increase the number of medical colleges. Increase the number of post graduate seats. Increase the expenditure on health..

And in India it is mostly seen that the private colleges are profit driven and thus are corrupt.. India needs to open more and more government colleges. Indian government should increase their %GDP expenditure on health from a meager 1.2% to somewhere around 6%. Is it asking much?

Right now this fight for getting into a post graduate degree is causing all the corruption.. Like it's said, Scarcity increases profits.. Make seats abundant, there'd be less corruption. No chance for making profits.. And moreover when the expenditure on Health will be increased, Institutes won't be bankrupt to think about profits through illegal means!

And after that, even the education system needs to be polished, so that good doctors are produced..

Hoping for a better future..

[Sources: WHO and MCI websites]