An overview of health care system in India

Abhiruchi Galhotra

Abstract

Health Care embraces a multitude of “services provided to individuals or communities by agents of the health services or professions, for the purpose of promoting, maintaining, monitoring, or restoring health.” Health services meet the needs of entire population; cover the full range of Preventive, Curative and Rehabilitative services, as part of the basic social services of a country. India has a population of over 1.2 billion with 28 states and 9 Union Territories. Central government formulates comprehensive health policies and plans under the direction of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for items of national importance, including disease control, medical education, the medical profession, and state budgets, are the shared responsibility of the central government and individual states. Public health sector consist of Primary Health Care (Provided at Sub centre) Secondary Health Care (Provided at PHC, CHC, DH) Tertiary Health Care (Provided at large hospitals). Public health sector is multifaceted various types of providers practicing in different systems of medicine, within different ownership structures. Individual states are given primary authority over most aspects of healthcare. An estimated 80% of public healthcare funding comes from the states. In-patient hospitalisation expenditure in India increased to 300% in last 10yrs in which more than 80% of expenditure met by OOPE, which leads to nearly 6million families getting into poverty due to catastrophic health expenditure. This led Government of India to launch Ayushman Bharat on 23 September 2018 with objective to cover over 10.74 crore poor and vulnerable families. Biography: Abhiruchi Galhotra is working as Additional Professor, Dept. of Community & Family Medicine, AIIMS, Raipur. Nodal Officer for ICMR funded Research Project on Prevalence & Etiology of Hearing Impairment. Post PG teaching experience of 17 years. Supervisor for 2 PG theses. Contributed 5 chapters in various textbooks of which one is by Springer Nature and 2 others are by Springer. I also have more than 25 research publications to my credit which includes original articles, review articles, commentary, viewpoint and letter to editor. Speaker Publications: 1. Bhat Ramesh (2006). Financial Health of Private sector hospitals in India. 2. Berman, P (2010). ‘The Impoverishing effects of health Care payments in India: New methodology and findings’. Economic and Political weekly 27(16): 65-71. 3. Chaudhuri, A., and Roy, K. (2008). ‘Changes in out-of-pocket payments for healthcare in Vietnam and its impact on equity in payments, 1992–2002’. Health Policy 88(1): 38–48 4. Economic Research Foundation (2006). Government health expenditure in India: a benchmark study. New Delhi. 5. National Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (2005). Financing and delivery of health care services in India. 5th World Congress on Public Health and Nutrition; London, UK- February 24-25, 2020. Abstract Citation: Abhiruchi Galhotra, A cross sectional study of utilization of sanitary facilities by adolescent girls in an urban slum of Raipur City, Chhattisgarh, India, Public Health 2020, 5th World Congress on Public Health and Nutrition; London, UK- February 24-25, 2020 (https://publichealth.healthconferences.org/abstract/2020/an-overview-of-health-care-system-in-india)