Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 16 July 2018 | Page 4

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The Abandoned Ones
CALCUTTA Lt Col (retd) Ranjit
Sinha: This refers to your cover story
Child Care on Oxygen (July 2). We are
extremely vocal about healthcare but
haven’t made even minimum progress
in the area. Healthcare for children and
women should be a top priority. The
app­alling child mortality rate of India
should be reason enough to step up
child healthcare, especially in rural
areas, but, as your story reveals, the situ-
ation is very dire. These days, many a
‘multispeciality hospital’ is part of the
urban skyline, its sky-high treatment
rates wholly out of the reach of the com-
mon man. Sometimes, modern diagnos-
tic gadgets make their way to the rural
landscape, through the WHO or as a
rare fulfilment of a neta’s tall promise,
yet due to lack of adequate doctors in
villages, they are of little use. Our doc-
tors are averse to working in villages,
soc­ialism is long gone. Therefore, we
need a new model—better incentives to
make doctors work in rural areas. A rec­
ent study found that one doctor is avail-
able for 1,668 people in India. Even
when it comes to health expenses, India
spends much less than other countries.
DEHRADUN Rakesh Agrawal: From
Gorakhpur to Nashik, from Calcutta to
Kolar and from Cuttack to Bhuj, our
children are dying as policymakers pay
scant regard to issues that really matter.
We spend just around 1 per cent of our
GDP on health and around 3.5 on educa-
tion. This is reflected in primary health-
care, hospitals and nursing homes
operating without doctors, nurses,
para-medical staff and equipment, forc-
ing people to take rec­ourse to private
hospitals for whom medicate care, inc­
luding that of hapless children, is just a
business to mint money.
ON E-MAIL J. Akshobhya: The lack of
infrastructure in the Indian healthcare
November 23, 2016. According to some
reports, hospital authorities allegedly
asked for a 12 per cent commission, as
against the 10 per cent earlier given, to
clear the company’s bill. This caused
the disruption in oxygen cylinder sup-
plies. Th