If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it is the importance of healthcare.
Breaking down the word simply, healthcare means taking care of your health. It is the organised provision of medical care to an individual or a community through medicine and pharmacy.
Health care does not only comprise physical well-being. It encompasses mental well-being as well. Mental health is a serious and prominent issue in today’s world. A large number of people suffer from depression, anxiety and isolation. A good health care system in a country seeks to provide relief to citizens suffering from either of the problems.
An efficient health care system in an economy can significantly contribute to the economic development and industrialisation of the economy. The health care sector is a major part of a country’s infrastructural facilities.
The healthcare infrastructure mainly comprises the advancement of the country in the field of mental and physical well-being. It is determined by the life expectancy of a sick person and the death ratio in the country. The infrastructure comprises hospitals, pharmacies, clinics, vaccination programs, clinical trials, sanitation facilities, doctors, surgeons, nurses and specialists. An important factor to determine the quality of health-related services in the country is to observe the life expectancy of a person who has undergone medical treatment.
India ranks 47th in the healthcare index. This may be because the health care facilities in the country are managed by public authorities. With the large extent of the population of the country, ensuring the free provision of health care services to every citizen is an extremely difficult task.
The Indian government has also established public hospitals in cities which can be accessed by people who belong to villages and fall below the poverty line, these people do not have the resources to pay for medical treatments. The doctors who work here receive their pay from the government. However, the services provided and equipment used by these hospitals and medical clinics are not very good. The poor quality of these services may be credited to the inadequate allocation of funds by the government to the health care sector.
The pandemic has driven a great deal of attention to the health sector. The government is finally understanding the importance of immunity and the well-being of the citizens in the country. As part of the economic relief package proposed by the government, the finance ministry has pledged 2.6 billion to the infrastructure of the health sector. Apart from that, the government has remembered to make huge provisions towards the health sector in the union budget of 2021-22 as well. It has allotted 2.83 lakh crores and 35,000 crores for the Covid-19 vaccination procedure.
