The prevailing crises arising out of Covid-19 pandemic and the elongated lockdown has tormented the country in a manner which will have little or no precedence. Except for a meagre portion of the population which can be categorised as economically well-off to tide over the multitude of troubles, the worst and direct to bear the major part of the brunt have been the common people. It was beyond the fold of commonly held beliefs and observations that pitch-dark conditions have such emphatic presence in so many fronts of Indian life. List of deficiencies and inadequacies will be of a broad-spectrum nature and the pandemic has exposed them all in one go which will be hard to conceal. Ranging from fragility of economic aspects of millions belonging to unorganised sectors, it is the far-below-average condition of the public healthcare apparatus that has emerged as the centre-point of discussions now. The people of Arunachal Pradesh have a fair storage of knowledge about the state of affairs of this particular aspect and the pandemic, as if like a blessing in disguise, has compelled all, the state’s policy framers in particular to refocus on it.

Chief Secretary’s observation on the state’s PHCs, CHCs and hospitals that came on Monday can hence be construed as an admission that it is far from the condition what it should be ideally. But it is the assurance that from now onwards the state’s public healthcare facilities, including those in far-flung areas are going to receive attention and uplift will give rise to hope. The state badly needs an urgent revamp on this aspect and it will be hailed by the citizens if assurances are translated into actions within a meaningful time frame.It will be necessary to take help of facts and figures to gauge how much neglected the country’s public care system has been over decades. Government expenditure on health as a percentage of GDP still floats around 1.5%, which is one of the lowest in world and experts have repeatedly cited it as one of the main cause for the current overstretched state of the public healthcare system. It can be recalled that the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016 published in Lancet in 2018 placed India at 145 among 195 countries in the Healthcare Access and Quality Index which was shamefully lower than Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Bhutan.

In Arunachal, accessibility of healthcare particularly by the remote area people is a perennial issue. The pandemic should be taken as a wake-up call by the state and the plenty of work still left to be done for rebuilding the overall healthcare framework must be taken up with a mission mode with extra stress on public healthcare drawbacks. 

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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