Edition 15 | November 21, 2022 | |
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Dear Friends,
We are delighted to present to you the next edition of the monthly newsletter by the Lancet Citizens' Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System. This edition focuses on determining political motivation as a key driver for universal health care, the criticality of achieving sustainable development goal targets for the health workforce, the need for countries to invest in high-quality primary health care and primary education, and more. As a Citizens’ Commission, we invite the public to participate, provide input and continue to engage with this initiative.
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Political motivation as a key driver for universal health coverage
The drivers for universal health coverage go beyond the macro-economic context of a nation, and as pointed out by scholars, are deeply linked with the extent of political prioritization of healthcare. Low public investments to health in India and slow movement toward universal health coverage underline the need for more attention to the political priority accorded to health in the country. While the role of politics in policy reforms has been established by several scholars, this paper seeks to identify the intrinsic motivations or incentives that drive political priority, write Sandhya Venkateswaran, Shruti Slaria and Sampriti Mukherjee.
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Achieving sustainable development goal targets for health workforce
While nurses enjoy a majority in the health workforce, they remain starkly absent from leadership roles, writes Siddhesh Zadey.
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Commission Members in Spotlight | |
"We have a fragmented healthcare system, and the provision of care depends on the ability to access and pay for it. Primary healthcare has been focused mainly on maternal and child health, and while indicators show the improvements in mortality and morbidity on a time scale of decades, our progress on nutrition in particular has been poor. Rapid urbanisation and life style changes are exploding non-communicable diseases and the public healthcare system has not been able to keep pace with infrastructure, manpower or supplies that are needed for quality care. In private healthcare, the profit model for outpatient and inpatient care results in unnecessary investigations and treatments, which are aided by a poor regulatory system," says Gagandeep Kang, Clinician Scientist and Professor in the Department of Gastrointestinal Sciences, Christian Medical College | |  |
"Health is a uniquely challenging and complex system due to certain attributes it exhibits – long time delays, principal-agent problem, information asymmetry, deep feedbacks at an individual and a system level. For too long, India has seen the question of health stuck at the questions of funding and quality improvement – with limited conversation about the design and incentives of the system. Add to that, Indian consumer and voter has exhibited limited power to demand better outcomes from the system. This cocktail of complexity is an interesting challenge to explore. In addition, the health system has also been undergoing massive shifts as disease incidence and profile changes, people live longer, and as we seek health in the form of not just ‘absence of disease’ but also in the form of ‘presence of wellness’," says Aakriti Gupta, CEO, Unbound 2.0 | | | |
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The Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, seeks to be a witness to the healing ministry of Christ, through excellence in education, service and research. CMC, Vellore is providing overall research support to the Commission. | |
We love hearing back from you! Please send your comments, suggestions, and contributions for these newsletters, including research highlights and published features to info@citizenshealth.in
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