Kashi Educare Health Centre- In Rural India
India is drawing global attention due to its deep political, economic and social transformations which have significantly improved the standard of living of its people. Unfortunately, this socioeconomic change is largely an urban phenomenon and rural population continues to suffer from economic deprivation and emerging health profile in rural areas is a cause for concern for stakeholders associated with healthcare in India.
Nearly 75% of healthcare infrastructure, medical personnel, and other resources are concentrated in urban locations where only 27% of the population exist. The rural population is impacted by contagious, infectious and waterborne diseases like typhoid, infectious, diarrhoea, measles, tuberculosis, whooping cough, amoebiasis, hepatitis, worm infestations, malaria, respiratory infections, pneumonia, and reproductive tract infections. Again, non-communicable diseases like blindness, cancer, mental disorder, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, hypertension, accidents, and injuries are also increasing.
We in the urban areas are always seeking better facilities; imagine the plight of the people in rural areas. Is this the GDP measured economic growth that we are so aggressively promoting. If this trend continues, it would challenge democracy as a system of governance and shake the foundations of our constitution.
We are constantly aspiring for a better quality of life, but the unforgiving reality in rural India is that most adults working in agricultural fields are chronically starved, a significant % of children are permanently stunted from undernutrition, one out of ten babies do not make it past the first year of their life. Many children in rural areas leave school year-on-year because of an illness in the family and they have to work to add to the families income. This cost of hospitalization places the affected families below the poverty line.
The situation is alarming and could lead to the collapse of the healthcare infrastructure in rural areas due to the overcrowding of healthcare seekers. The dearth of qualified medical functionariesand non- access to basic medicines and medical facilities means that the poor people in rural areas have to visit urban areas for treatment. Often, they either delay the treatment or avoid the treatment because of economic reasons. This could seriously impact their health condition in the long-run, thereby reducing the life expectancy. Considering that the prevailing healthcare environment affects millions of people, every concerned stakeholder must support government initiatives and reduce the tremendous pressure on the existing public healthcare mechanism.
