A study on rural health infrastructure in Karnataka

The health sector reforms that are undertaken in India are diametrically opposite to the people’s needs. The National Health Policy was endorsed by the Parliament of India in 1983 and updated in 2002. Parallel to the public health sector, and indeed more popular than it, is the private medical sector in India. Both urban and rural Indian households tend to use the private medical sector more frequently than the public sector, as reflected in surveys. India has a life expectancy of 64/67 years (m/f), and an infant mortality rate of 46 per 1000 live births. Rural India contains over 68% of India’s total population, and half of all residents of rural areas live below the poverty line, struggling for better and easy access to health care and services. Health issues confronted by rural people are many and diverse-from severe malaria to uncontrolled diabetes, from a badly infected wound to cancer. Postpartum maternal illness is a serious problem in resource-poor settings and contributes to maternal mortality, particularly in rural India. A study conducted in 2009 found that 43.9% of mothers reported they experienced postpartum illnesses six weeks after delivery. Privatisation and liberalization being undertaken in the country has to be viewed in the broad context of majority of the Indian people living under extreme poverty conditions, non-availability of basic amenities for the majority of the people, poor nutritional status, impoverishment due to health, poor availability of public services, presence of a dominant and unregulated, unaccountable private health sector along with strengthening of market forces and helplessness of the consumer against various odds. Related to the above issues present study attempted to analyses the Rural Indian health sector reforms using secondary sources.