Universalising Health Care in India by Imrana Qadeer, K B Saxena & P.M. Arathi (Authors) - 2019

Aakar Books, 2019. First edition. Hardcover. New. This book tries to locate the implications of the fast transforming health sector within the larger context of economic growth without resource redistribution; where health services become a commodity and access to services for the majority of the working people becomes costlier and more difficult. To mark the journey of ideas and concepts in public health, it focuses on the concept of Universal Health Care (UHC), which is now being offered as the panacea for the crisis in public health and is often presented to the public as something new and innovative, a project uncluttered by externalities and non-medical issues. The authors unravel the history of the concept of UHC and the contradictions and dilemma in its implementation through shifting trajectories of policies in India. They pose some pertinent questions: can the present model of UHC in India be the answer to universal access/coverage and provisioning adequate evidence that the public private partnership models are beneficial for the majority? Can technologies alone tackle issues that are rooted in social inequality? Can the state move away from a systemic and comprehensive approach for healing India`s failing health system? Or does hope lie in midway policy corrections requiring political will and awareness of low-cost experiments that are going on within the country in making drugs and health care available with people`s participation? Printed Pages: 475. NA