What Needs to be done to Improve Primary Healthcare in India?
The current status of Primary Health Centres (PHC) in India is very grim. In the 25,650 PHCs in the country, 15,700 (61.2%) function with one doctor each. As many as 1,974 (7.69%) do not have even a single doctor. While 9,183 (35.8%) of the total number of PHCs do not have a lab technician, 4,744 (18.4%) do not have a pharmacist. Primary healthcare services in India are located too far from the populations they serve, provide too little services, and have too little resources. Each PHC in India is supposed to serve a population of 25-30,000 (as per global standards ....