Amartya Sen presses for universal access to health care-Workshop on social equity -February 20, 2011

Amartya Sen presses for universal access to health care

by Varma.gbsnp - February 20, 2011

Nobel Prize winner economist Amartya Sen says there is a need for the right to universal access to public health care, just as the country has guaranteed the right to education for all.
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Nobel Prize winner economist Amartya Sen says there is a need for the right to universal access to public health care, just as the country has guaranteed the right to education for all.

At an event to announce the setting up of the Pratichi Institute in Kolkata on Thursday, Dr. Sen said, education for all is an unfulfilled promise but in health care it is not even a promise. “We want to press for it.”

As for Right to Education, he said, “a lot more is to be implemented, especially for girls. Not only China, but also Bangladesh is way ahead of India.”

Healthcare in India
India’s healthcare system is in shambles. One look at our public health system is enough to wonder how people, especially the poor, survive any disease. It also looks as if government has vacated public health field and leased it out to private sector.

In India, poor people suffering from illnesses cannot approach private sector hospitals. Lamenting the over-reliance on the private hospitals, Dr. Sen, said, it led to “a situation in which quite often very poor peasants are exploited.”

Dr. Sen compared universal healthcare in every country in Europe, America, Canada, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore with that of India and said, “people in India should have a right to public health.”

Dr. Sen’s views
While taking stock of what has gone on in one year since the passing of the Act, Dr. Sen feels a lot has been achieved but a lot needs to be done. He further observed:

“The right to education was in some ways not as radical as some of us would have liked. On the other hand it was a big change. Has it achieved anything? Yes. Has it moved fast enough? No.”

He also said that Bangladesh is way ahead of India, especially in girl’s education. In Bangladesh, number of girls going to school is larger than the number of boys.

Stressing that Bangladesh has outscored India on human development indicators other than per capita income, Dr. Sen said, "One of the probable reasons is the activism of liberated Bangladeshi women.”

Lamenting the fact that some people opposed draft Food Security Bill on the grounds that the country needs only economic growth, he said, “Economic growth is not an end in itself; it must be used for proving food, basic education and healthcare to the people.”

In his assessment of the development of education in West Bengal, he said it was a mid-ranking state, and that the decline started at the turn of the last century.” It is not the best, but there is no reason that it should not be the best.”

The Pratichi(India) Trust was set up with his Nobel Prize money. The Pratichi Institute, a research wing of the Pratichi (India) Trust, will focus on research in primary education and healthcare.