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Lack of basic medical

care leading to low life

expectancy in many states

many of them in rural locations. The locations instead of finding the special-
tehelka bureau scheme has faced some challenges ised care their conditions demand. As
mainly that of fraudulent medical bills. it involves loss of days earnings, these
There have been media reports of mis- people are left without any treatment.
use of the Ayushman Bharat scheme by Reports suggest that there are
hough the government has unscrupulous private hospitals through 750,000 doctors in India, which
claimed that average life submission of fake medical bills. amounts to only one for every 1,425
expectancy has increased Under the Scheme, surgeries have been people. The other problem is infra-
in the country, but there claimed to be performed on persons structure and equipment: without
T still remains a massive gap who had been discharged long ago and water, power, and proper facilities,
between the top states compared to the dialysis has been shown as performed effective care is difficult to provide. A
bottom ranks and also the average life at hospitals not having kidney trans- paper commissioned by UNICEF India
expectancy in India is far lower than plant facility. recommended increasing availability
even countries such as Bangladesh and There are at least 697 fake cases in of specialist health services in remote
Cambodia. Uttarkhand State alone, where fine of locations by testing improved commu-
The Minister of State (Health and one crore has been imposed on hospi- nication technologies, monetary incen-
Family Welfare), Ashwini Kumar tals for frauds under the Scheme. How- tive structures for doctors providing
Choubey stated this in a written reply ever, unlike the earlier RSBY (Rashtriya rural service, and increased numbers of
in the Lok Sabha on March 13 that the Swasthya Bima Yojana) era, plagued post-graduate seats in medical colleges.
average life expectancy at birth has by lax monitoring of insurance fraud, The Indian Journal of Community
increased from 49.7 during 1970-75 to AB-PMJAY involves a robust informa- Medicine has given the Five A’s that are
69.0 in 2013-17, registering an increase tion technology infrastructure over- major challenges. The first challenges is
of 19.3 years during this period. How- seeing transactions and locating suspi- awareness or the lack of it: How aware
ever, most states in India continue to cious surges across the country. Many is the Indian population about impor-
struggle with providing basic medi- hospitals have been blacklisted and the tant issues regarding their own health?
cal care for its citizens thus leading to constantly evolving fraud-control sys- Studies on awareness are many and
low life expectancy which falls short tem will play a major role in streamlin- diverse, but lacunae in awareness
of most developed and developing ing the scheme as it matures. appear to cut across the lifespan in our
nations. The cost of care is also keeping citi- country. Adequate knowledge regard-
A primary cause of this is accessibil- zens from getting proper treatment. ing breastfeeding practice was found in
ity because despite schemes like Ayush- The fact is close to two-thirds of house- only one-third of the antenatal mothers
man Bharat Yojana which is a flagship holds seek healthcare from the private in two studies.
scheme of the government’s National medical sector. There are operators For instance, a study in urban Har-
Health Policy which aims to provide offering health insurance covers but yana found that only 11.3% of the ado-
free health coverage at the secondary only 5% of households report that a lescent girls studied knew correctly
and tertiary levels to its bottom 40% household member has coverage of about key reproductive health issues.
poor and vulnerable population. It was any kind. Till now, many rural com- A review article on geriatric morbidity
launched in September 2018, under the munities across the country are with- found that 20.3% of participants were
aegis of Ministry of Health and Family out access to hospitals and clinics. aware of common causes of prevalent
Welfare. Inhabitants that seek out treatment illness and their prevention. Why is the
Many people in the country are still face long-distance travel, and often level of health awareness low in the
with little or no access to healthcare, settle for care at the most convenient Indian population? The answers may

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