Populism Does Not Help Public Health

Source: This post on Issues with Public Health in India has been created based on the article “Populism does not help public health” published in “The Hindu” on 30^th January 2024.

UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper 2 Social Justice – Issues relating to Health.

Populism does not help public health, The article discusses the issues with public health in India and highlights steps that can be undertaken to deal with them.

What is The Current Status of Public Health and Nutrition in India?

As per the 5th National Family Health Survey 2019-21:

1. 35.5% of children under 5 were stunted.
2. 32.1% were underweight.
3. Prevalence of anemic children aged 6-59 months increased from 58.6% to 67.1%.
4. Prevalence of anemia increased from 54.1% to 59.1% among women aged 15-19 years.

This highlights a significant gap in public health efforts.

What are The Issues with Public Health in India?

1) Emphasis on Short-Term Results: Political leaders promote initiatives that promise immediate results, such as new hospitals, subsidised treatments, and populist health policies.

2) Budgetary Constraints: These short-term measures do not have much impact because of a lack of action beyond public announcements, due to budgetary constraints.

3) No Emphasis on Critical Areas: Attention is not given to critical areas such as sanitation, disease surveillance, and public health education, which are important to maintain population health and prevent disease outbreaks.
For instance, in the case of Dengue, immediate relief camps are set up but long-term strategies such as understanding vector control or developing effective vaccines is not undertaken.

4) Profit-Driven Pharma Sector: The pharmaceutical industry’s profit-driven nature often sidelines areas such as public health. For instance, socio-economic factors such as poverty result in disparity in availability of medicine (as seen in the case of TB).

5) Lack of a Comprehensive Approach: Public health requires expertise from various fields such as environmental science, sociology, urban planning, and economics. India’s current approach is physician-centric only.

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What Should be Done?

1) Focus on R&D: Research and development is crucial. For example, research related to vaccine development and the impact of climate change on disease vectors.

2) Separating Health from Political Processes: Public health decisions should be based on scientific evidence and long-term goals rather than short-term political interests.

3) Nutrition Support: Investments in nutrition programmes have positive long-term implications for health and productivity.

4) Comprehensive Approach: Effective public health management should encompass preventive measures, policy formulation, community health, environmental health, etc.

5) Autonomy to Health Ministries: Health Ministries can be placed directly under the leadership of elected officials, such as the CM or PM, like India’s space and the atomic energy departments. This would provide a degree of autonomy for them.

Question for practice:

What are the issues plaguing the public health sector in India? Suggest steps that can be undertaken to deal with these challenges.