Health care system in India: An overview

Rural Health Care services in India is mainly based on Primary health care, which envisages attainment of healthy status for all. Also being holistic in nature it aims to provide preventive, promote curative and rehabilitative care services. The different Health Policies and Programmes of the country aim at achieving an acceptable standard of health for the general population of the country. Keeping in line with this broad objective, a comprehensive approach was advocated, which included improvements in individual health care, public health, sanitation, clean drinking water, access to food and knowledge of hygiene and feeding practices. Importance was accorded to reduce disparities in health across regions and communities by ensuring access to affordable health, especially to the weaker and underprivileged like women and children, the older persons, disabled and tribal groups. An assessment of the performance of the country’s health related indicators depicts that significant gains have been made in them e.g. life expectancy at birth, child and maternal mortality, morbidity. This paper attempts to review the progress of primary health care services in India, especially in rural areas. It deals with the origin and evolution of health care in India, where it covers the details of the different stages of primary health care in India.