STUDENTS' CORNER - 38

This time we shall direct our attention to the question of health of the citizens of a country and its relationship with GDP. Once again, innumerable researches have been conducted and are being conducted on the relationship between GDP and Health as an indicator of the GDP. We will see briefly the factors that influence GDP and its relationship with Health.

Researchers have found that the more the people of a country are healthy, the better is the economy of the country; the economic success of a country depends on the health of the people of the country. The healthier the nation, the more efficient is the performance of the nation in all the spheres of economy and the industries. Moreover, it is one of the primary obligations of a nation, of the governments, both the Central and the States, to set aside some money to take care of the health of the people. In fact, all the countries, the developed and the developing do have provision for Health Budget. And, the developing countries generally have greater percentage of Health Budget ranging between 17% and 19% while developing countries do not normally cross the single digit budget provision.

Again, public health is a very complex area of governance and for the present we shall just mention the most significant concerns of the government.  First, it must deal with the medical problems of the elders of the society and it is steadily becoming a constant need for the govt to set aside without choice some considerable money for the old people. Private orphanages do not come into the picture now. Providing heavily subsidized medical attention is the inevitable administrative obligation of the government. Next, coming to the other end of the spectrum, the child mortality claims attention.  Money must be set aside to minimize the infant and child mortality. The higher the national economy in terms of growth, greater the possibility is for more money being set aside for all these social responsibilities with access to higher GDP. 

Providing quality health care to the elderly and to the children besides the people with low income who therefore cannot afford it is primary commitment of the government. However, in all nations, both the developed and developing and under-developed countries, private healthcare system is preferred to the public healthcare system. The common reason appears to be that in the public healthcare system, the quality is sacrificed; the people are not given the due attention simply because they depend on free medical benefits.  There seems to be another reason; medical personnel do not prefer to go to the rural areas for medical service; they might have their own reasons; but, the fact remains that the rural people do not get the kind of medical attention the urbanites get and command.

Coming back to the point: the higher GDP is, the greater is the economic growth of the country thereby the govt being enabled to set aside more money for the public healthcare system.

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