The current state of health in India is tied directly to the country’s history. While traditional medicine, specifically Ayurveda, has existed in India for thousands of years, the subcontinent lacked a formal health system until the arrival of the British in the 17th century. The first Western medical professionals arrived on British East India Company ships in 1608, and in 1664 the Madras General Hospital opened as India’s first hospital, serving only British soldiers. The East India Company established colonial rule in 1757 then founded the first medical department seven years later. Over the next 200 years of colonization, the British built many hospitals, health centers, and medical schools as well as creating many laws and policies standardizing …show more content…
Instead, it focused on primary care, socioeconomic factors influencing health, and community participation (National Health Policy 1983). However, because the document was more of a vision statement than an action plan, there were few tangible goals or practical applications undertaken. Though the amount of health care infrastructure increased, there was low utilization due to lack of personnel, resources, and monitoring. When the World Bank and other entities starting emphasizing cost effectiveness and vertical interventions in the 1990s, the country moved farther from the goal of universal coverage. This decline in public healthcare access, coupled with huge increases in private facilities only accessible to the wealthy, increased disparities in access to care (Shukla and Duggal 2006). In response, the country created a new National Health Policy in 2002, containing lofty goals, such as increasing the utilization of public facilities to 75% of total health care usage (National Health Policy 2002). However, the policy again contained no explicit strategies for attaining those goals and further decline in the public healthcare system and exponential growth in the private sector followed. Subsequently, several new programs have been implemented to attempt to meet the needs of vulnerable populations, such as the National Rural Health Mission in 2005 and the National Programme for Healthcare of the Elderly in 2011, however, these programs have not had a large impact in reducing disparity and increasing overall population health. In 2015 the government began to draft a new version of the National Health Policy which aims to solve these problems by providing universal health care, but this new version has not yet become law (Lahariya and Menabde
During the preindustrial era medical practice was disorderly where there was no such a thing as profession, it was all just a trade. The medical procedures were very primitive, missing institutional core where no institutions were completely devoted to patient care and people mostly relied on their selves due to unstable demand. There was no medical education, even the college graduates had no scientific training. However, overtime scientific medicine and technology has influenced medical education, allowing medical services to be delivered in other settings rather
National health systems are assessed by the extent to which expenditure and actions in public health and medical care contributes to the crucial social goals of improving health, increasing access to quality healthcare, reducing health disparities, protecting citizens from penury due to medical e...
Before the 1800’s healthcare was a family affair with woman at the home front, to take care of all illnesses within their family, on occasion a doctor would be fetched if the infections were life threatening and could not be treated by the women in the household. So it was around this time that healthcare started growing from more of a home remedies base and traveling doctors with little to no training, to a more well-rounded knowledgeable and respected practice. In the mid to late 1800s, as America became increasingly urbanized, this made an amplified need for bigger and better equipped hospitals. Doctors who would travel to their sick patients stopped and began treating them all under one roof. Unlike the hospitals in Europe, patients were treated in one large shared area, but the Americans innovations to hospitals facilities gave patients who could pay, were treated in smaller and often more private rooms. In 1846 the earliest efforts of doctors to create a cohesive professional organization was the American Medical Association. Since 1847 the American Med...
In 1954 another landmark act was passed in which all functions relating to the health and maintenance of healthcare to Indian Nations was given to the Surgeon General of the United States Public Health System (Wallechinsky). Within a year 48 hospitals, 18 health centers and 13 school infirmaries had been ...
The main elements of the medical model of health are the search for objective, discernable signs of disease, its diagnosis and treatment (Biswas, 1993). Therefore, by adhering to this reductionist view, the human body is seen as a biochemical machine (Turner, 1995) and health merely as an absence of disease, a commodity to be bought and sold. The rise of hospitals with their goal of curing and controlling disease has led to the marginalisation of lay medicine, and a focus upon the individual rather than society as a cause of ill health. Health education and promotion with their focus upon 'victim blaming' and individualism have extended the remit of the medical profession from the hospital into the community. With medical imperialism the power of medicina has grown and medicine has all but replaced religion as an institution of social control. Illich (1976, p53) describes medicine as a: 'moral enterprise.....[which] gives content to good and evil..... like law and religion [it] defines what is normal, proper or desirable'.
This paper explores the textbook Health Politics and Policy, Fifth Edition by authors James A. Morone and Daniel C. Ehlke (2013) and Body of Knowledge of Family and Consumer Sciences by Sharon Y. Nickols (2009). With this paper, I will explain some of the parts on how the textbook Health Politics and Policy, Fifth Edition written by the authors and numerous scholarly contributors relate to the body of knowledge. The textbook is compiled with many chapters that will be explain family health, family politics, and family policies. The book has a collection of publications by some of today’s finest political minds and policymakers. In a world of changing policies and politics, this fifth edition easily connects themes of the past and
If you visit any hospital, you 'd know that we are indeed vulnerable. Any illness where hospitalisation is necessary can affect the old and young, rich and poor. The list of lifestyle diseases such as cardiac problem, diabetes, cerebral attacks, renal failure or cancer would be the newly found disease that are extremely common. Specialty hospitals and specialists are for sale to treat these diseases however the treatment comes at a certain cost. Not many of the Indian families are able to afford treatment in a specialty
The Indian Health Service (IHS), had its beginning in 1784 with the first treaty between the government of the US and Indian tribes, but it was not until 1994 with the appointment of Dr. Michael Trujillo as Director of the IHS that initiated major organizational changes that improve the American Indians and Alaska Natives healthcare service of 500 tribes. He is remarkable in the IHS history because he was the first IHS Director pointed by the President of the US, first pure-blood American Indian, and his family had an active participation in the political Indian community that inculcated to him the culture of being the advocate for Indian people (Ginter, Duncan, & Swayne, 2014). He served and represented more than 1.4 million American Indian
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), otherwise known as the Global Goals, are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. Among the 17 goals the third goal is to achieve good health and well-being (UNDP). To achieve this goal, it is definitely known that passing the obstacles available in the overall activities performed to bring about health and well-being. The third goal in its sub goal gives attention on achieving universal health coverage which is an ongoing process for every country as they work to ensure that all people receive the health services they need without experiencing financial hardship. How these financial hardships can be minimized?
Underlying mean of the health problems in our country, are poverty and poor education. Differences in socioeconomic status are seen for most conditions, diseases and sick factors in this country. The social distribution of health and social causes, which most effect health, must be understood and addressed. Total public and private health expenditure in Pakistan represents 2-3 %of the gross domestic product. (GDP). In 1990, less then 1% of GDP was allocated to public health care with private expenditure accounting for the rest. This is well below international standards because of the low levels of expending; it becomes critical to evaluate the impact of government policies of people’s health. In addition to direct provision of various governments influence health delivery in indirect ways through their policies towards medical education and regulations.
The policies are often revised to suit the current economy of a country (Mason, Gardner, Outlaw, & O 'Grady, 2015). My choice is based on the fact that this is the policies in health sector keep on changing. The health policies are not the same in every country. The government in collaboration with the health officials are responsible for drafting the policies. There are a number of aspects that are considered when drafting the policies. The first factor is the economy of the country (Mason, Gardner, Outlaw, & O 'Grady, 2015). Before setting any policies, the government has to consider the economy and the availability of resources. It then decides what policies to set based on its
Healthcare is like other avenues of business and life, it is constantly changing. At the turn of the 19th century, food and occupations were different than they are today. Like the changes in food and other occupations, healthcare is no different. We also would not want it to be. If the country remained struggling with the same challenges of 1899, then we would not have progressed as a medical society. As healthcare changes we all have to change. Change in our ways, tactics, thinking, and structure of the healthcare market. According to Merriam-Webster (2014) the maintaining and restoration of health by the prevention and treatment of diseases, mainly by trained professionals is healthcare (Merriam-Webster, 2014).
National Indian Health Board (2009). THE REAUTHORIZATION OF THE INDIAN HEALTH CARE IMPROVEMENT ACT. [ONLINE] Available at: www.nihb.org/docs/11182009/IHCIA%20Fact%20Sheet_Senate. [Last Accessed 25 November 13].
Health policy is described as the action of the Government to achieve goals within the health sector (10). Through an analysis of policy it is understood that it is influenced
Health care policy targets the organization, financing, and delivery of health care services. The reason for targeting these areas is for the licensing of health care professionals and facilities, to make sure there is protection of patients’ private health information, and there are measures of quality care, mistakes, malpractice, and efforts to control of health care cost (Acuff, 2010). There are several stages that one must take when creating a policy (see figure 1). The figure below shows the critical steps in the policy process. First, the problem must be identified, once the problem is identified potential policy solutions must be formulated, then the policy is adopted, and then implemented. After the policy is in place, an evaluation of the policy has to take place (This Nation, 2013).