IMR- Infant Mortality Rate. LE- Life Expectancy. CDR- Crude Death Rate

Improvement in Infrastructure
The current outlay for the health sector, which is somewhere between 2 to 3 per cent, needs to be enhanced to at least 5 per cent to ensure adequate supply of equipments, drugs and other wherewithal to help District Hospitals, Primary Health Centres and Sub-Centres to attain optimum levels of efficiency.

If we do not urgently improve the situation, we will end up as a nation full of sick people, requiring extraordinary amount of resources to cure them from various ailments. One of the chronic complaints of the people about government health functionaries is their non-availability in the place of duty. This problem need to be tackled effectively. The problem of non-availability of MBBS doctors at the Primary Health Centre level can be tackled by recruiting Ayurvedic doctors and giving them eight month orientation and training on health management and appointing them at the PHC. This orientation and training should be designed with proper emphasis on the social development and management aspects of community health.

A similar short-term orientation should also be mandatory for other staff at the PHC before they assume duty. Another idea is to make two years of rural service mandatory for all medical graduates before they can seek admission for post graduation. It is also necessary that all PHCs are equipped with modest lab facilities for doing simple tests. We should ensure that every PHC, CHC and Sub-centre of the country is properly equipped and manned.

To encourage motivated and bright young professionals to join Primary Health Care Services, it is proposed to introduce an ‘Indian Health Services’, so that health care management of the country if left with competent people who would also be assured of an attractive career in medical services. Modalities of this should be worked out keeping in view the experiences from other Indian Administrative Services. A regulatory mechanism to assess the professional competence of doctors during their service should be introduced. Like in the other Indian Administrative Services, health personnel, including nurses, should be given adequate orientation and training before they join the services. This should be further strengthened with compulsory continuing education for health personnel of all levels.