There is no doubt that the health care infrastructure in India as well as Nagaland is in doldrums with even the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) pointing to the stark inequalities in the Indian healthcare system and the need for urgent correction. As rightly observed by the NHRC it is paradoxical that on one side, we have super specialty medical centres which cater to the needs of patients requiring specialized and speedy treatment and on the other hand, a very large number of our population remains deprived of basic medical facilities and healthcare. This also holds true in the case of Nagaland and despite decades of Statehood there has been no visible improvement in the area of health care both infrastructure and manpower availability. The need to make health care accessible to all remains a daunting task for the State. And as a basic human right the right to health is not only about access to healthcare and building hospitals but should include safe food, safe drinking water, adequate sanitation, education, gender equality besides improving the living condition of children. For the country as a whole, much remains to be done towards a secure environment for children given that we continue to be plagued by the problem of female foeticide, infant mortality, hunger, malnutrition, homelessness, illiteracy, inadequate healthcare facilities and child labour to mention a few. Not only that but maternal healthcare in India leaves a lot to be desired. A recent international report said India's maternal mortality rate is 16 times higher than in Russia and 10 times higher than in China. This is indicative of the fact that women and children continue to be vulnerable. Further, according to UNICEF, nearly half of the children in India under the age of 3 are malnourished and one third of the world's children suffering from malnutrition are in India.
In this raging debate over the state of our healthcare system, reports have come out that the Medical Council of India (MCI) proposes 300 colleges to produce rural doctors. In other words these medical colleges will provide education to rural students and deploy them there to provide basic healthcare facilities to villagers. According to the MCI there are around 300 districts in India where there are no medical colleges and therefore the proposal to have a medical college in each of these districts to train rural health workers. With the people-doctor ratio six times lower in rural India than cities, the latest proposal to produce lakhs of rural health workers is a step in the right direction. While quality health care is desirable, for majority in rural areas getting a semblance of health care at affordable cost is more practical. This does not however mean that the State surrenders its responsibility. Our governments must tackle the problem areas such as the high incidence of reported absenteeism of Doctors especially in rural areas and the infrastructure bottleneck in the health sector. For now though, the proposal to provide education to rural students and deploy them there to provide basic healthcare facilities to villagers will no doubt fill an urgent void in the landscape of trained healthcare providers available in the health system. The slogan health for all must become a reality.
