Comprehending the impacts and effects of different health outcomes in relative terms, and between some countries, are vital in considering the reasons for the disparities and health needs of a country. China and India have had dramatic changes in economic growth, population and health. The two world superpowers have attracted much needed global attention in recent decades, including the growth of their real per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) to grow between 1994 and 2004 at an average yearly percentage of 7.8% for china, and 4.4% for India ( Yip & Mahal, 2008).
Refining the healthcare outcomes is among the utmost apprehensions for China’s government in the last half century. Shobert (2012) suggested that the effects on rural healthcare of the Chinese people and the health consequences in the burden of diseases in China are the two health outcomes for which China have had different experiences, in the last half century. One of the most severe parts in need of reforms and investments is the rural healthcare system of China (WHO, n.d.). The spending and affordability of health services are some refining parts on the rural healthcare of the Chinese people. The diseases outcomes in China was said to be one with great impact on its citizens. Additional reasons for the health disparity between rural and urban Chinese are the incapacity for the rural dwellers to access affordable care and the insufficient quality of care after access is provided.
A serious health challenges in China narrates to health inequality with health outcomes deteriorating since in the 1970s. A case for health disparity against rural dwellers was the spending nature on healthcare, which was and has been unreasonably supportive toward urban dwellers. There was insufficient provision of quality care that is affordable for the Chinese people in the rural regions. Secondly, lack of disease control was another severe part in which Chinese government needs to focus on. This includes the provision of qualified doctors who can work tirelessly to provide medical treatments against deadly diseases spreading around Chinese communities.
The disparity between leading parts of private sector within the China’s economy versus the restricted role of private thespians in China’s healthcare system is obvious. It is of its current plan to attempt to expand and provide a policy that heavily subsidizes healthcare for the rural and urban poor, and that can principally be realized via the extension of the China’s insurance plan.
The two health outcomes for which India have had different experiences in the last century are the mixture of Indian healthcare system as a public and private providers, and the minimal and irregular level of government health spending. India have had the greatest experiences of a system where public health system was put in place but the private health structure was never controlled– in terms of providing quality of care for the patients, spending nature of the care, out-of-pocket costs for patients, and other external variations caused as a result of the two mixtures.
Indian’s health outcome was the one in which its spending are minimal as compared to other comparable income countries. For example, a study by Transparency International (TI) in 2008 reported that the healthcare segment in India was the second utmost corrupt entity (Sudarshan and Prashanth, 2011). The resulted impact of the low levels of public health spending means citizens spends more to be healthy; household pays the burden of services in the private segment; poor access of public services for the citizens and the failing of poverty level, for some as a result of health spending. For instance, among Indian citizens that access short-term care for specific health condition, 28% of those in countryside areas said it was as a result of financial difficulties, equated to 20% in urban regions (NSSO, 2006).
The main gap on the outcomes of Indian healthcare system in the last half century came about the ineffectiveness of health public policies, ineffective application in the public health segment; the absence of single but most effective standards for the system leading to the present disjointed and unrestrained aspect of the private health segment (Growth Analysis, 2013). The minimal and irregular level of public health spending in India was what experts pointed out as the need to adopt a comprehensive healthcare attitude where spending is done in a systematic way of achieving effective but universal coverage for all. For example, an immediate target area would be the re-shaping of all existing federal health programs under the control of NRHM (National Rural Health Mission) and expand to all needed areas even in the urban regions (Growth Analysis, 2013). The NRHM is an Indian federal health program enacted in 2005 with its main operation to improve the quality of healthcare system and the health status of its citizens.
In terms of public and private health care providers, even on the nature of spending attitudes, differs vastly across states and regions and between urban and rural areas. For example, in Kerala, public health services and facilities play their intentional part of being the most important place for quality care and the delivery of important health services ( with 24 hour a day services). The part of Kerala is different from other parts of India in many concepts of care. Kerala view itself as a place for providing essential health benefits of its citizens. For example, Kerala was for sometimes evidenced as one of the lowest for its frequencies of child malnutrition in the whole India (Brown, 2013). The concept of health care achievement with its astonishing accomplishment of Kerala’s strong-minded programs of providing exceptional quality of health has been studied as the “Kerala Model.” This model is usually referred and referenced by anthropologist, economists, and public policy-makers (Brown, 2013).
An important aspect that underwrote from the rest of some Indian regions is the idea of robust civil movement organized by the people of Kerala. The history of such civil activity was something stared centuries ago, which resulted in the present outcomes of notable health figures (i.e. health improvements). This, in a nutshell was something viewed both biological and social, with the opportunity of its citizens to manage a structure and impose specific reforms that directly affect their ways of live (Brown, 2013). Indian healthcare system in terms of outcomes and improvement capacity should be one in which it provides universal access to reasonable, affordable, and quality healthcare of its citizens.
Reference:
Brown, A. (November, 2013). Growth and Success in Kerala. The Yale Review of International Studies. Retrieved August 2, 2015 from http://yris.yira.org/essays/1150
Growth Analysis. (May, 2013). India’s Healthcare System: Overview and Quality Improvements. Retrieved August 2, 2015 from http://www.tillvaxtanalys.se/en/home/publications/direct-response/direct-response/2013-05-20-indias-healthcare-system—overview-and-quality-improvements.html
Sudarshan, H. and N.S. Prashanth (2011), “Good Governance in Health Care: the Karnataka Experience”, Lancet, Vol. 377, pages 791 & 792, March.
National Sample Survey Organisation, NSSO. (2006). “Morbidity and Health Care and Condition of the Aged 2004-05”, New Delhi: National Sample Survey Organisation, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India
Yip, W. & Mahal, A. (2008). The Health Care Systems Of China And India: Performance And Future Challenges. Retrieved August 2, 2015 from http://www.aleciashepherd.com/writings/articles/other/TheHealthCare%20Systems%20Of%20China%20and%20India.pdf
World Health Organization. (n.d.). China: Health, Poverty and Economic Development. Retrieved August 2, 2015 from http://www.who.int/macrohealth/action/CMH_China.pdf
Shobert, B. (2012). THE PROMISE AND PERIL OF CHINA’S HEALTHCARE REFORMS. Harvard Asia Quarterly, 14(4), 66-73
