NEW
DELHI: Corruption is “eating into”
India’s overburdened healthcare system, the new health minister said in an
interview published Friday, promising a “thorough clean-up”.
The
remarks by Health Minister Harsh Vardhan came after the British Medical Journal
published an article late last month alleging rampant corruption in India’s
healthcare system.
“As a
doctor and former (state-level) health minister, I am more aware than anybody
else of the corruption that is eating into the entrails of every aspect of
governance, including the health system,” Vardhan told the Indian Express
newspaper in an emailed interview.
Vardhan
called bodies overseeing medical education corrupt and the organisation
overseeing drugs standards a “snake pit of vested interests”.
“I have
inherited a poisoned chalice. But a revolution is coming,” Vardhan said.
He said
“corrupt practices” had been exposed by several government agencies and Indian
parliamentary committees in the past “so who am I to deny that it is going on?”
The
British Medical Journal article by an Australian doctor who worked in an Indian
hospital likened healthcare corruption in India to “a cancer” and said
kickbacks and bribes oil every part of the country’s healthcare machinery.
For
years, stories have abounded in India of medical college places being sold to
the highest bidder, drug supplies being diverted from intended users and
patients forced to bribe hospital personnel to see senior doctors.
Critics
also allege doctors and hospitals take kickbacks for referral fees and
prescribing certain drugs and over billing.
The
health minister was appointed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when his
right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party swept to power in parliamentary elections in
May on a platform of good governance and faster economic growth.
“When
the prime minister gave me this responsibility, I was conscious his objective
of giving the people a world class and inexpensive public healthcare system
would be impossible to realise without a thorough clean-up,” Vardhan said.
“Corruption
has to be rooted out and there are no (two) views on that,” he said.
The
corruption allegations come as the country of 1.2 billion battles a rising tide
of lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and cancer cases are projected to rise
by more than 20 percent by 2020, according to a government report released
Thursday.
India
is also lagging considerably behind development targets, infant mortality and
maternal death rate, the health ministry said Friday.
India’s
public and private expenditure on health is the lowest among its peers in BRICS
— Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa.
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