We need a multi-disciplinary approach to cancer care where clinical physicists are made an integral part of the critical decision-making process of cancer diagnosis and therapeutic choices. While we move up the value chain of cancer care, it is equally crucial that we enrich our repository of knowledge through a purpose-driven information exchange within the scientific community.Dr. B. S. Ajaikumar
I write this letter in my individual capacity as a honest tax payer. I am proud of the fact that I am one of the largest tax payers of the country.
I wish to highlight key concerns over the budgetary allocations for two critical areas: Health and Education as also the need to bridge the income and wealth inequality, the glaring, ever widening divide between the haves and the have nots of the country.
Talking of Health, there is a huge disparity in the quality and accessibility of health services between the metros on one end of the spectrum, and tier 2/tier 3 cities and rural areas on the other. Although as high as 76 per cent of India’s healthcare is run by the private sector, most of it is concentrated in urban areas.
The quality of healthcare penetration in Tier 2 and 3 cities has always been a huge concern in India. Today, if one looks at the doctor-patient ratio, it is heavily skewed in favour of urban areas which has led to a massive urbanization of healthcare. A minuscule percentage of doctors volunteer to work in Tier 2 and 3 cities despite the acute need for quality healthcare in non-metros and rural areas, both in communicable and non-communicable diseases. The advent of Covid only worsened the situation, as the footfalls in rural areas took a massive hit which in turn adversely affected outcomes in diseases like cancer where early detection is extremely crucial. The reasons for this disparity are purely economic, concerning the profitability and sustainability of healthcare enterprises.
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