All about India

Although India has the highest number of medical colleges, there is only one doctor per 1,700 citizens in India; the World Health Organisation stipulates a minimum ratio of 1:1,000 (Kumar, 2013). In India, 75% of health facilities and resources in India are focused in rural areas, where only 27% of India’s population live (Dasgupta, 2013). The rural population make up around 716 million of the Indian population, sufficient medical resources are not allocated to this majority of the population. Furthermore, rural areas suffer from poor sanitation and poverty, and thus require these health care facilities more urgently than the urban population.
Ratio of rural population to doctors is 6 times lower than that in urban areas (Dasgupta, 2013).
Ratio of rural beds to population is 15 times lower than that in in urban areas (Dasgupta, 2013).

Rural Reluctance

In recent years, there has been a trend in which doctors are reluctant to start practice in rural areas, creating an artificial shortage of resources in rural areas and high concentration of doctors in urban areas. Government surveys reveal that poor infrastructure, non-availability of medical resources and equipment are outstanding reasons as to why doctors are unwilling to practice in rural areas. This has become a serious problem in the Indian healthcare system, to the point where in 2012, 90 per cent of the students who passed out bought their way out of the rural service. (Kumar, 2013)

The insufficient medical resources in rural areas result in problems such as accessibility and affordability of healthcare.