Chennai: Over 16 lakh people die in India every year as a result of poor quality of healthcare, reveals a recent study published in medical journal The Lancet. The report said that about 50 lakh people die every year in low and middle-income countries, of which highest toll was found in India.
The report said that a total of 85-lakh deaths occur due to treatable medical conditions worldwide, mainly because of low quality of healthcare.
Around six out of 10 deaths in middle-income countries such as India die due to poor quality healthcare, said the report. However, around 36 lakh people die due to lack of access to healthcare facilities, which is very less when compared to the deaths due to poor healthcare facilities.
The researchers said that insufficiency of primary and hospital healthcare facilities was the main reason behind loss of life from treatable conditions. Researchers from the Lancet Global Health Commission said that though we emphasize on access to healthcare facilities, we lag behind in providing good quality of medical facilities.
Sub-standard medical care led to 84 per cent of cardiovascular deaths and 81 per cent of vaccine-preventable diseases. As per the report, children and new mothers received very low medical care of the needed medical interventions and this results in more than 60 per cent of neo-natal complications.
The report said that less than half of suspected tuberculosis cases were provided proper medical interventions. The state of medical care for mental disorders is worse, with less than 10 per cent of people with major depressive disorder receiving minimal treatment. Various loopholes such as wrong diagnosis for serious medical conditions such as pneumonia, heart attacks, stroke or newborn asphyxia were found to be major setbacks in the current medical system.
