Will Health Ever Become a Poll Issue in India ?

By Dinesh C Sharma, March 20, 2014, Metro India

The public discourse in the run up to the general elections is dominated by political issues and not substantial issues of development – education, health, environment and livelihood. The so-called focus on development is couched in political backdrop of Gujarat and even there too discussion is very shallow. At the national level, the UPA government has claimed significant improvement in health indicators during its decade-long tenure. The life expectancy has increased by 5 years in the past decade – from 62.3 years for male and 63.9 years for female in 2001-2005 to 67.3 years for male and 69.6 years for female now. Maternal Mortality Ratio has declined from 301 per 100,000 live births in 2001-03 to 178 per 100,000 birth in 2010-2011.Total Fertility Rate has come down to 2.4 in 2011 from 2.9 in 2005.

These are all national figures and mask realities in some states because of health disparities we have. While national maternal mortality rate is down, women in many parts of India are still more likely to die during childbirth than those in Burkina Faso or Ethiopia. The national figure of average maternal mortality rate of 178 per 100,000 births may sound reasonably good, but there is a huge variation with Uttar Pradesh and Assam still having 300 and 347 deaths per 100,000 respectively. At the other spectrum are Kerala and Tamil Nadu with 66 and 90 respectively. India’s performance is no good when it comes to child mortality and malnutrition. Nearly 1.83 million children under five years of age die each year in India – the highest in the world.

While Polio may have been eradicated, there is a huge burden of vector-borne diseases as well as a growing burden on non-communicable diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Nearly one million cancer-related deaths occur in India every year. Health costs are too high - 63.22 million individuals or 11.88 million households were pushed to below poverty line only due to healthcare expenditure. India produces 50,000 MBBS doctors every year, yet there are shortages in public health systems in villages and districts.

Despite the health situation being so dismal, none of the political parties have proposed any vision to change the healthcare system.

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