Health services system in India: an expression of socio-economic inequalities.

Can inequalities in health care in India be handled by tinkering with the Health Services System alone? Those who say yes will perhaps seek to bring about administrative reforms do health education seek appropriate technology and so on. Those who say no realize that even these steps--which sound harmless and necessary--will arouse conflicts that cannot be handled within the isolated domain of the health services system and if by any chance they want to put their fingers on more sensitive points as who owns the drug industries and who controls decision making then they will soon know the odds against them. The effective result is that the benefits of health services as well as the profits from the supporting drug and equipment industries reach only a small section of the population. This section is the ruling classes and their collaborators equipment. What is the alternative? That is the most urgent contemporary question. Quite clearly the epidemiological nature of ill-health points to the need for major programs for peoples health emphasizing the preventive aspects of health services. But the class in power is not willing to undertake these. Neither can it be persuaded to do so. Which class then will undertake the historic task of ensuring that the vast mass of toilers get the basic prerequisites of a healthy life that they are entitled to? And what role can well-meaning individuals groups and organizations play in identifying assisting and mobilizing this class to accomplish its task? These are the questions that must be squarely faced in searching for an alternative health services system.