The health sector in India is on a roll. The purchasing power of the Indian middle class is rising very rapidly. So they can afford quality healthcare. Today most of the Indians can buy western medicines and so the heath sector in India is growing rapidly. Due to its very bright prospects people are also inclined to invest in the health sector. Today many private healthcare centers are also coming up and they are also playing an important role in providing medical facilities to the people.
Today there are approximately 11,25,000 practitioners of different systems registered with various medical councils in the country. Of them, only 125,000 are in government service (including those in central health services, the armed forces, railways, state insurance etc). That leaves about a million doctors floating around in the private sector, not to mention tens of thousands of additional unqualified and unregistered medical practitioners. Fifty-nine % of all practitioners are concentrated in cities. For instance, 60 % of all medical graduates in Maharashtra are located in Mumbai, where no more than 11 % of the state's population lives! Similarly, 84 % of hospital beds are today located in urban areas, whereas 75 % of the population still resides in villages. This selective concentration of health care providers is a major concern to be addressed, especially since studies have shown that those living in rural areas spend about as much on health care as those in towns.
The State offers subsidies, loans, tax waivers and other benefits for the setting up of private practice, hospitals, diagnostic centres and pharmaceuticals. For instance, the government subsidises the unethical and exploitative private health sector via medical education at the expense of the public exchequer. All over the world there is a tendency to move towards more organized national health systems and an increased share of public finance in health care.
