India urged to offer universal healthcare

While providing incentives to private hospitals, the country struggles to deliver free services to the poorest.

India

The World Healthcare Organisation says India must work harder to provide universal healthcare.

The country spends little over one per cent of its GDP on healthcare and has a severe shortage of doctors and beds in state hospitals, but provides tax concessions and cheap land to its booming private healthcare industry.

Now India’s millions of poor have no choice but to camp outside private hospitals, which were ordered in August to provide free medical treatment to the poor. They are too poor to afford their own healthcare.

Al Jazeera Prerna Suri reports from New Delhi.

Source: Al Jazeera