Just Me - India

It is indeed surprising that we throw huge amount of money at different things in India, but invest so little in healthcare. USA has a private insurance driven healthcare system, while UK has government driven one. Both models have their advantages.

Indian model is somewhere in between. Government has attempted the UK model, but it is a complete failure, like most other things driven by govt. The state of govt. hospitals can at best be described as 'bad'. This is comparitively easy problem to fix, provided the will is there. The blame lies directly with the bureaucrats who manage it, along with the politicians who give directions.

This is clearly an area that can be improved quickly, and the gains are tremendous and very visible. People would be grateful to the govt. even now, if it gets its act together.

Given the state of things, many private health care business enterprises have sprung up - hospital chains and medical insurance schemes etc. These are mostly for those who can afford them. At least, this is welcome compared to not having anything at all.

Top 5 things that should be done immediately:

• Make the bureaucracy accountable. Start at the top.
• Invest money, and weed out corruption. Remove the inefficient and corrupt. Reward the best.
• Make people pay for services, even if it is a very nominal and a token amount. Introduce people to the concept of paying for services. Free stuff does not last long.
• Pay doctors well. Don't force anyone to work in rural areas. Instead make it attractive enough for them to work there. This is the long term solution.
• Invest in Healthcare infrastructure, spruce up hospitals, make the employees polite (and not rude!) to the visitors/patients.

Ok... so this is all the obvious stuff. Just start performing, and keep improving. It should be a top priority of the government.

Its a shame that we cannot achieve this after so many years (decades) of existence of dedicated govt. ministry and departments to handle this.

The will is clearly lacking.

If nothing else! Let the private healthcare enterprises do their job. Something is better than nothing.. right ?