Stray Thoughts

 A few days ago I asked a student of Public Health what was the public health question that bothered him the most and he promptly answered “Why don’t doctors stay in villages?” He knew that India had finally breached the WHO standard of doctor:population ratio of 1:1000 but was concerned about the huge difference in the availability of doctors in cities and in villages. As a diligent student he had looked at the Economic Survey report of 22- 23 that had reported the favourable doctor:population ratio data as well as the earlier survey of 2018-19 that had reported that there were many PHCs without doctors. The Rural Health Survey of 21-22 had also reported that there was a serious lack of doctors and other staff in PHCs and CHCs, he said. Knowing that I had spent several years as a young doctor in the villages of Uttar Pradesh he asked me why I had gone to the village and why I thought doctors were not going there any more. As a young doctor I had initially gone to the villages of Uttar

I came across an article titled In Charts: The Sorry State of Fundraising at India’s NGOs in The Mint a few days ago. Three graphs highlighting different aspects of NGO funding in recent times, struck me. The first was how NGOs of global origin were receiving more funds than indigenous ones. The second was that the NGOs formed in the recent past were able to raise more funds, compared to those that had been established earlier. The third was that children focussed and community development NGOs received nearly half the amount of grants available, while NGOs working on women’s issues and social justice received about 1.5% of the pie each. I don’t for even once think that addressing chidren’s needs or community development are less deserving issues, but I was certainly surprised if not a little taken aback, that a country which is celebrating its 75th year, still requires non-Governmental resources for such core development issues. Why haven’t these publicly financed efforts delivered? W