Elusive Healthcare and Ailing Population: An Analysis of Indias Health Policy with Reference to the Health Status of Urban Poor in Bangalore

Elusive Healthcare and Ailing Population: An Analysis of Indias Health Policy with Reference to the Health Status of Urban Poor in Bangalore

Health is a state of mental, physical and social well-being. India is in need of a healthcare system that can fulfill the demands of over a billion people who are unable to bear the burden of the cost of healthcare. The major challenges in the countrys healthcare system are the universal access to healthcare, health equity, healthcare human resources and healthcare finance. Increasing population in cities and urban poverty has raised a strong concern in the health condition of the urban poor in particular. The speedy growth of cities in the country in conjunction with the growth of the urban poor has made this position more important at this point of time. The present study basically aimed at finding the major factors influencing urban health and healthcare. This research aims in finding out the reasons for the fragmentation of Bangalores health services with unequal distribution of resources and minimum communication between various services. This study also focuses on areas of health concern like insufficient primary healthcare, lack of referral system, insufficient public participation towards healthcare promotion, co-ordination between various governmental or non-governmental departments etc. It is mainly based on secondary data. Interview guide is used as a tool to collect primary data. Content analysis is used to analyse and describe the present scenario objectively and systematically. Bangalore has a wide infrastructure of healthcare centres but still the poorer sections of the society do not have easy access to them. A significant number of government schemes have been implemented to provide better healthcare services in Bangalore. It can be said that Bangalore has got enough health resources to serve its people. However, the urban poor do not have the necessary means to access a proper healthcare due to various reasons like the shortage of staff, medicines, diagnostic services in public sector and private healthcare expenses which are unaffordable. The government has been failing to achieve its health target in the urban areas and ultimately left the same in the hands of private health sector. The funds allocated on health are not used effectively towards improved health service delivery. Healthcare budgeting, healthcare policies, disease eradication programmes and improvement plans of primary healthcare centres and dispensaries etc. are the main areas in which the government is falling short. There is a need to empower the urban poor to maintain their rights within the context of development. A policy which is more oriented towards the partnership of private and public healthcare sectors is advisable. A universalized system to provide equitable and basic care to every individual is required. Public-Private Partnership in health sector is a key for improving the health of the population. The governments act of financing towards healthcare must in fact be increased to 2-3 per cent of GDP. As such, the present study came out with a lot of suggestions to improve the health status of urban poor. It has also made an attempt to analyse the policy issues associated with healthcare. The researcher believes that this will be definitely an addition to the existing literature on healthcare systems in India. Layout of the dissertation: The dissertation is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is the introductory part of the research. It defines the basic concepts by giving brief summary or by providing information which are necessary to understand this research. This chapter also describes the research problems which motivates the researcher to conduct the study. Second chapter reviews the literature of healthcare problems faced by the common man. It includes reviews of various articles and books contributed towards healthcare and health policies by various health experts and practitioners. The third chapter talks about the methods used to implement the research. It explains the methodological procedures such as tools for data collection, sources of data and research design which are used to carry out the study. Data analysis is the fourth chapter and this part of the research includes the analysis of the various collected data. It includes the process of inspecting and transforming of the collected data with the goal of highlighting useful information, later helping towards suggesting conclusion of the research. The final chapter presents the summary of the research with important findings and suggestions. Key words: healthcare, health policy, health status, ailing people, urban poor, cost of treatment, public health sector, private health sector, health infrastructure.

Dayarani Devi Sarangthem

Department of Sociology