Health Policy and Legislation

The announcement of the shift from a one-child to two-child policy at the fifth plenum of the 18th Party Congress of the Communist Party of China in October 2015 has brought the population debate back to the forefront. The social consequences of the policy have been severe, repercussions of which will reverberate for generations to come. This is a lesson for India that it should be warned once more of such coercive measures and their impacts.

Majhi's tragic tale of carrying his dead wife reminds us of the pathetic state of health in India.

India has a long history of collecting data on population and health, but it is neither integrated nor systematic, especially in small geographical areas. The National Population Register should be completed, completeness of the coverage of the Civil Registration System should be ensured, and their linkage should be established with census and other household surveys in India to document health disparities by class, caste, and region.

Health allocations in Budget 2016-17, which show a modest increase in nominal terms, must be viewed against the virtual stagnation of allocations since 2010-11, and the major cuts of 2015-16. Meanwhile, state governments' investments in health grew steadily. The centre has only prioritised initiatives that stimulate private health sector growth. This approach will have immediate adverse effects on availability and quality of public health services and will cause impoverishment due to healthcare costs, compromising economic growth in the long run.

The eighth Krishna Raj Memorial lecture by Eric Suba, held recently, was based on the visual inspection with acetic acid test for cervical cancer trials held in India and the lack of ethics they involved. Research that uses the absence of care as the foundation of its trial design is exploitative research that violates the rights of its participants who put their faith in researchers to protect them from harm.