Director's Message

Valkin's Health Care

Every economy in contemporary times rests on investments in its infrastructure. Apart from physical roads, buildings, ports and roadways, it is the social infrastructure viz. – affordable health, clean drinking water, sanitation and education that ought to take the central stage especially since the COVID 19 pandemic has emerged.

The pandemic has, in India resurfaced the deplorable state of the existing healthcare infrastructure. Going by numbers, the Economic Survey 2018-19 suggests that a whopping 7-8 crore Indians fall below the poverty line (BPL) because of health related expenditure. Official data indicates that more than one third of out of pocket expenditure of an average Indian household goes into medical care. This reveals the non-affordability of a large section of the Indian population for whom getting to see a healthcare provider, leave alone doctor is a far-fetched dream. Adding to this problem is the non-accountable attitude of a few existing healthcare setups. Lack of humanity, ethics, moral values and holistic communication has created a ‘relationship’ gap between the providers and patients.