Essay - Is India's Health Care Infrastructure Sufficient for Handling COVID 19 Pandemic?

Is India's Health Care Infrastructure Sufficient for Handling COVID 19 Pandemic?

Today the health infrastructure of India is in pathetic condition, it needs radical reforms to 

deal with new emerging challenges. On the one hand the role of private players is 

continuously increasing in healthcare sector, but simultaneously healthcare facilities are 

getting costly, and becoming non-accessible for the poor. The government hospitals are facing 

the problem of lack of resources and infrastructure; there are inadequate number of beds, 

rooms, and medicines. In this research paper the authors have discussed the present scenario 

of healthcare facilities and personnel. On the part of government there is lack of monitoring 

of the funds and resources, which are devoted towards the improvement of healthcare sector. 

The authors have suggested a model healthcare plan which devolves around preparing a long 

term strategy for qualitative as well as quantitative improvements in our healthcare 

infrastructure by focusing on workforce capacity and competency, information and data 

systems, and organizational capacity.

Health infrastructure is an important indicator for understanding the health care policy and 

welfare mechanism in a country. It signifies the investment priority with regards to the creation 

of health care facilities. India has one of the largest populations in the world; coupled with this 

wide spread poverty1

 becomes a serious problem in India. The country is geographically 

challenged; this is due to its tropical climate which acts both as a boon and a bane, a Sub 

Tropical Climate is conducive to agriculture however it also provides a ground for germination 

of diseases2

. Due to a cumulative effect of poverty, population load and climatic factors India’s 

population is seriously susceptible to diseases. 

Infrastructure has been described as the basic support for the delivery of public health activities.3

Five components of health infrastructure can be broadly classified as: skilled workforce; 

integrated electronic information systems; public health organizations, resources and research. 

When we talk about health infrastructure we are not merely talking about the outcomes of health 

policy of a particular country, but the focus is upon material capacity building in the arena of 

public health delivery mechanisms. 

The Government of India’s 1946 Report on the Health Survey and Development Committee (also 

known as Bhore Committee) had declared “the inadequacy of existing medical and preventive 

health organization” as one of reasons for India’s poor health condition in its report. Moreover, 

the recommendations included an infrastructure plan for a three-tier health care system4

 at the 

district level to provide preventive and curative health care to dwellers in both rural and urban

areas. The Bhore committee report stressed on access to primary health care as a basic right, 

which subsequently became the basis of national health care system. Since the Bhore Committee 

nine other committees have been formed, to examine the challenges faced by the healthcare 

sector in the post-independence period, the latest being the National Commission on 

Macroeconomics and Health, 2005. The report highlighted the problem of lack of resources 

which have made the health system unaccountable and disconnected to public health goals, and 

inadequately equipped to address peoples growing expectations. The estimated total investment 

of Rs 74,000 crore consists of a whopping projected Rs 33,000 crore for capital investment 

required for building up the battered health infrastructure alone. The commission recommended 

that an institutional infrastructure which constitutes of a number of autonomous and self-

financed bodies is a bare minimum to cope up with the health situation in India. Thus in the 

period of about 60 years the problem of health infrastructure has remained unresolved.