Global Courant 2023-05-10 14:35:00
NEW DELHI – Mr. Mithilesh Chaudhary, 21, coughs weakly as he struggles to get up after spending the night outside the state-run All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi.
“We slept on the footpath for two nights,” said his grandfather Bhim Lal, as the two waited in a queue of about 100 people outside the hospital’s main entrance looking for an appointment.
“He is suffering from chest congestion and no one has been able to tell us exactly what is going on. We have been to many hospitals in our district and finally a doctor from a private hospital asked us to visit the AIIMS in Delhi.”
Mr Chaudhary, who lives in Bihar state, about 1,200 km from Delhi, has no appointment and was not given a doctor’s name. His only resort is to stand in line until he can get one of the few slots that open each morning to those waiting outside.
His plight and that of others who queue every day from dawn highlights the shortage of specialist doctors and health workers in rural India, home to more than two-thirds of India’s 1.43 billion people.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has built more than a dozen similar medical institutions for specialized treatment since taking office in 2014. The government has plans to build at least one major hospital in each of India’s 761 districts.
The problem is a lack of doctors, a shortage reaching critical levels as India becomes the most populous country in the world.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), India’s doctor-to-patient ratio reached an all-time high of 1.2 doctors per 1,000 patients in 1991, but as the population increased, the ratio fell to about 0.7 by 2020.
The WHO recommended level is 1 and China, which has a similar population to India, is 2.4.
Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya told parliament in March that India actually has a ratio of 1 doctor per 834 patients, well above the WHO level, but the number also includes doctors who practice traditional forms of medicine such as Ayurveda, homeopathy and naturopathy .
The WHO and physician groups such as the Indian Medical Association do not account for traditional medicine practitioners in their calculations.
At the opening of the first specialized medical institute in northeastern India in April, Modi said his government has been trying to increase the number of doctors by establishing more medical colleges.
“This shortage has been a major barrier to quality health services in India,” he said. “That’s why our government has been working massively over the past nine years to increase medical infrastructure and medical professionals.”
The number of public hospitals, excluding specialized institutes, has increased by about 9 percent during Modi’s time at the top, government data shows.
