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PrivatE hEalth sErvicEs
In the rural and urban areas, doctors run their own private
clinics. These are run by private owners to earn more and
more profit. In India, a large number of doctors have their
private clinics, hospitals and nursing homes. Though they
have higher quality standards but are very expensive and
Private Health Service therefore, unaffordable for vast majority of Indians.
Various problems of private health care services are as under :
• Concentrated in urban area : Most of the hospitals are located in urban areas as they
know the rural class can’t afford them.
• Costs of services too high : They prescribe expensive medicines. Many people cannot
afford them or have to borrow money to get quality treatment from private hospitals.
Private medical practitioners prescribe unnecessary medicines, injections and saline
bottles even when simple medicines are sufficient.
According to a survey, the member of hospitals in private sector has increased from 11,174 in 1991
which sums up to 57% to 18,218 in 2000 which sums up to 75% in private sector.
healTh care anD equaliTy
In India, we come across a situation in which we find that private health care centres are
enormously increasing. These centres are concentrated in urban areas. Such services are
run only for profit making and the cost of the services provided are quite high. Only very
few who can afford the cost of such services go to these hospitals.
While the Constitution of India states that it is primarily the duty of the government to
ensure the welfare of the people and provide health care facilities to all, the question
which comes to every one’s mind is why equal and adequate facilities are not provided to
every one? Is adequate health care available to all?
After doing the above mentioned activity, it would be absolutely clear to you that the
health situation in India is not adequately and evenly given
to all. The responsibility of providing equal health services
to all its citizen is with the government. More so to the poor
people of our country. Health depends on the basic amenities
provided to the people, the social conditions they are living
in and on the health care services provided to them. Hence
it is important to concentrate on all the aspects of health in
order to improve the health situation of our people.
Now I Know :
In simple words, health means our ability to remain free of illness and injuries.
India’s rural health care system is in crisis because most of the doctors prefer the comfortable wealthy urban lives.
Primary Health Centres (PHC) cater to many villagers in rural India.
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