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Transforming Public Health in India

Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: In July 2025, India ranked as the world’s fourth-largest economy. Day by day, this diverse nation, which is home to 1.4 billion people, is heading toward becoming a global economic superpower. While this achievement is remarkable, it is imperative that, for the socioeconomic well-being of the nation, we make public health our top priority. Unarguably, a population that is healthy and genuinely happy will guarantee a high human development index.[1] As of the 2024–2025 interim budget, healthcare constituted approximately 1.89% of the total government expenditure.[2] While this budgetary expenditure ought to be scaled up, there has been significant progress in healthcare in recent times. From Generic Aushadhi Kendras and Ayushman Arogya Kendras to high COVID-19 vaccination coverage, from well-equipped ambulance services to super-specialty hospitals and health insurance companies seeking to guarantee financial relief to ease out-of-pocket expenditures, a whole gamut of healthcare infrastructure services is offering a novel impetus to the healthcare landscape of India.[3] Government initiatives such as Ayushman Bharat - Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna covers 50 crores poor and vulnerable persons in India. On similar lines, Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana aims at upgrading government medical colleges/hospitals; Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram focuses on adolescent health; and Arogyavani, a toll-free health-line provides reliable and immediate health advice to the people, playing a prominent role in preventive medicine.[4] These and other laudable public healthcare initiatives in India are aimed at providing quality and affordable healthcare at a global level.[1] Despite these achievements, challenges continue to exist in the public healthcare system. Thousands of Indian villages still suffer from the shortages of doctors, particularly specialists, trained nurses, paramedical staff, and hospital beds, which are indispensable in emergency and critical healthcare. Limited access to quality medical services, lack of adequate funding and/or awareness, forces a sizable population to spend out of their own pockets every year, pushing them into poverty.[4] In the government-funded healthcare domain, mental health remains a largely neglected area, with little optimism of being addressed in the near future.[5] Experts agree that the public healthcare system needs a rapid transformation, especially to serve the underprivileged. There is a need to bring about a paradigm shift from an overt emphasis on curative care to preventive, rehabilitative, and palliative care as needs diversify. In other words, the shift has to happen from illness to wellness.[1] Health literacy plays a major role in this pursuit. For instance, educating the masses on infectious diseases such as cholera, pneumonia, and tuberculosis will reduce a huge financial and healthcare burden that strains the medical resources and community productivity.[1] Similarly, integrating traditional healthcare systems with modern scientific ones can effectively tackle several health-related issues with ease. For example, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, National Institute for Mental Health and Neurosciences, and Certified Yoga Centers are already working collaboratively in the some regions of India to improve physical, mental, and spiritual well-being in communities. The result is a decrease in medical expenditure in case of lifestyle and mental health-related ailments.[5] Traditional midwives are working with gynecologists in the rural parts of Rajasthan and bringing down infant mortality.[5] There is a need to promote such innovations across the country. Promotive healthcare needs to focus far more on upstream determinants and try to fix the downstream elements. While there is increased emphasis in recent years on determinants such as water, housing, nutrition, roads, and education, it is imperative to ensure that all these aspects are built by making health as their robust backbone and seamlessly woven with the modern digital and technological fabric.[1] India today stands at a defining moment. While on one hand, India’s extraordinary economic accomplishments are promising greater opportunities ahead, on the other, they are being threatened by health challenges on a large scale. In this situation, the question is not whether we can afford to make public healthcare our top priority, but the question is whether we cannot.[1] Strengthening the public health system and specifically preventive and promotive care ought to be our national moral priority. Investment in health is investment in the full realization of human potential. Every single choice that we make in this sector will determine the nation’s trajectory of success for the decades ahead. Increasing public health expenditure, augmenting public–private collaborations with nonprofit goals, decentralizing focusing on quality healthcare in the public sector, and a sustained political will to provide universal, comprehensive primary health care to the citizens are urgent imperatives that will ensure a healthier, happier, and high-performing India.[2,4] Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest.
DOI: 10.4103/ijph.ijph_1035_25
Language: English
Subfield: Finance
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $48
OpenAlex ID: W7117711214
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