‘8 percent households become poor due to medical expenses’

NEW DELHI - About eight percent of households in India are pushed to below the poverty line due to heavy medical expenses, said a new report on the Indian health sector Thursday.

“India Health Report 2010″ by the Confederation of Indian Industry and a think tank, Indicus Analytics was released by Minister of State for Health Dinesh Trivedi.

The report notes that there are “critical gaps” in infrastructure in the health sector, especially for trained manpower and healthcare centres.

“According to the report, about 7-8 per cent of households are pushed below the poverty line because of expenses incurred on healthcare,” according to a press release issued by CII.

The report also said that the Indian government need to shift focus away from foodgrains, towards the intake of variety of food in correct proportion, as there was an urgent need ameliorate the malnourishment among children.

“The report states that focus is required to adequately empower the institutions that govern India’s healthcare sector and making them answerable for health outcomes. It has recommended that the ministry of health and family welfare needs to be strengthened in terms of both scale and scope and it also needs to be made more answerable for India’s poor health outcomes,” the release said.

It further recommended that India needed to move away from disease specific measures, towards development of a holistic public health and healthcare regime.