People’s health: Where do we stand?

People’s health: Where do we stand? 

The science of safeguarding and enhancing the health of individuals and their communities is known as public health. In order to do this effort, healthy lifestyles are encouraged, illness and injury prevention research is carried out, and the identification, prevention, and response to infectious diseases are studied. Protecting the health of entire populations is the main focus of public health. These populations vary from being small as an individual to being as large as a whole nation or continent.

Every age group in the country are currently affected by significant, critical lifestyle diseases, the majority of which are non-communicable including cancer, hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, cardiac issues, infertility, hormonal imbalance skeletal problems etc. Due to high medical costs and inadequate medical infrastructure in a developing nation with a population of 1.44 billion people, unfortunate deaths occur. Every person has the fundamental right to good health, which has effects on their physical, mental, social, and economic well-being.

We are the youngest population in the world, with 65% of Indians being under35 years old, when we look at the population as a whole.  If major health problems start to appear at this age of creativity, it will affect the nation’s growth, progress, and economy. The data made accessible on official websites and other trustworthy sources, it shows the level of severity.  Eighty percent of teenagers are vitamin D deficient, and the majority of people have life threatening health issues. This happens due to many parameters but importantly inadequate health infrastructure, irresponsible stakeholders, lack of awareness among the society, no or very less counseling, self medication, unnecessary and irrational use of medicine, antibiotic resistance, faulty life style and many more. Our analysis and observation indicates merely awareness and proper timely concealing will solve the major problems. Therefore, it is crucial to spread the idea that “Prevention is Better than Cure” to everyone in order to create a Healthy India.

Number of public and private hospitals (35644), doctor to patient ratio (1: 834), nurse to patient ratio (1.96: 1000), and chemist to patient ratio (1:4000) statistics. The demographic mentioned above is only included for health care purposes.

Budgeted spending on the health sector by the central and state governments was 2.1% of GDP in FY23  and 2.2% in FY22, up from 1.6% in FY21. According to the recommendation of the Fifteenth Finance Commission, public health spending for the union government and the states should gradually rise to 2.5% of GDP by 2025. The Indian government is making an attempt to give the general population access to health infrastructure through various schemes.

In India, there are more than 10,00,000 (Ten Lakh) registered pharmacists working in a variety of positions such as drug store management, hospital pharmacy, academia, pharmaceutical industry, clinical and pre clinical, sales and marketing, research & development, and pharmacy administration, all of which contribute to the country’s health. Pharmacists are the third largest group of health care professionals in the world. Four lakh pharmacy students graduate from 3,850 colleges in India every year. Very less number of graduates or diploma holders operates in community pharmacies and hospital pharmacies across the nation. Unfortunately, chemists only provide medication to patients and do not provide patient counseling at hospitals or pharmacy stores. The same is true for chemists who work in academia, the pharmaceutical business; sales and marketing, R&D, pharmacy administration, preclinical and clinical research, etc. They lack the necessary depth of expertise to advise themselves and other population.

India is presently in a state of transition — economically, demographically, and epidemiologically — in terms of health. However, the country will only prosper if the population is healthy. Currently, the nation faces a triple burden of illness, including the unresolved issues of infectious diseases, the challenge posed by noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), connected to alterations in lifestyle, and the introduction of new pathogens generating epidemics and pandemics. Additionally, in order for the health infrastructure to meet these difficulties in the twenty-first century, it is already overburdened and has to be improved

Lack of health awareness among population is major concern and is biggest threat for the overall development of the country. Basically, lack of awareness about diseases and its management, medicine and its management, sexual life, reproductive health, hygein, pediatric health, first aid, nutrition, lifestyle, diet, naturopathy, ayurveda etc.

Being accountable as a registered pharmacist and pharmacy students, it is our duty to raise awareness among all people through education, counseling, demonstrating, interacting, and discussing. This will enable us to reach out to everyone and will help to reduce burden on government infrastructure

Dr. Surendra G Gattani,

Professor, School of Pharmacy, 

S.R.T,M,University, Nanded