The New Indian Express published a column in their newspaper on May 30, 2017 on Indian anesthesiologists. This column stated that there is only one anesthesiologist for every lakh (100,000 people) in India according to the World Federation Societies of Anesthesiologists. This numbing statistic was concluded by a survey that collected data from five billion people internationally analyzing safe and affordable anesthesia and surgical care. According to Scroll, India has a population of 1.3 billion with only 16,500 anesthesiologist’s resulting in 1.27 anesthesiologists per 100,000 people in India.
Dr. Praveen Kulkarni of JSS Medical College in the Department of Community Medicine gave a presentation on the Indian Healthcare System describing the medical hierarchy in the public and private sector. During this presentation at the Public Health Research Institute of India (PHRII) he stated that there are four specialists including a gynecologist, pediatrician, primary doctor, and an anesthesiologist at the secondary care level in Community Health Center’s (CHC). In India there is one CHC for every 80,000 to 120,000 people. This information correlates well with the New Indian Express’ column concluding that there are a median number of anesthesiologists for CHC’s in India.
The Indian Society of Anesthesiologists currently has 25,000 registered members including medical students. The 8,500 absent Indian anesthesiologists either do not practice medicine or have left the country. This could be a result of the fact that anesthesiologists do not get adequate recognition nor an equivocal salary when compared to other doctors in India. This affects global health in numerous ways and raises the question, how can Indian anesthesiologists be promoted to practice their profession in India? According to Bajwa (2013) journals such as the Indian Journal of Anesthesia, Journal of Anesthesiology Clinical Pharmacology, and others are striving to promote Anesthesiology in Asia and the Middle East by publishing positive anesthesia trends in clinical and public health. In my opinion promoting anesthesiology in India is not enough to convince Indian anesthesiologists to stay in India when they can offer their services elsewhere resulting in a better quality of life for them. The Indian Healthcare System needs to improve how they value anesthesiologists in order to ameliorate the system as a whole.
More information on this topic would be necessary to implement a true metamorphose. I would have liked if the author of this column included interviews from anesthesiologists that practice in India to assimilate their perspective and analyze if they feel undervalued. This would add an important perspective on improving the healthcare system. The government may defend their decision on employing such a low number of anesthesiologists due to the private sector taking popularity. The urban areas have more of an advantage due to having the accessibility to an immense amount of private hospitals. When in rural areas an individual may take days to travel to receive expensive yet quality healthcare.
While skimming through the newspapers at Urban Oasis I found particular interest in this article due to the previous lecture we had by Dr. Kulkarni, as previously stated. Although I was familiar with the amount of health care providers per lakh this article took me by surprise. Living in the United States I have taken for granted the easy access to the vast amount of healthcare providers of different specialties. Learning this information makes me more appreciative of the accessibility and makes me want to see systematic change in India in order to improve the quality of healthcare available to the Indian population.
References
Bajwa, S.J.S. (2013). Qualitative research in anesthesiology: An essential practice and need of the hour. Saudi Journal of Anaesthesia, 7. doi: 10.4103/1658-354X.121055
Dyson, T., Cassen, R., & Visaria, L. (2005). Twenty-first century India: Population, economy, human development, and the environment. OUP Catalogue.
Kulkarni, P. (2017, May 22). The Changing Face of India’s Health Care-Corporate Hospitals; Super Specialty. Public Health Research Institute of India.
Staff, Scroll (2017, May 26). India has one of the smallest pools of anaesthesiologists in the world [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://scroll.in/pulse/838721/india-has-one-of-the-smallest-pools-of-anaesthesiologists-in-the-world
One anaesthetist for every lakh in India. The New Indian Express. 30 May 2017.