India's healthcare in dismal
condition: Report
New Delhi: India ranks the
lowest in the world on several health indicators and a large part of the
country's population has little or no access to good quality healthcare,
according to a report released here Wednesday.
The health crisis is aggravated by a
rising incidence of chronic and non-infectious diseases, the India
Infrastructure Report 2013-14: The Road to Universal Health Coverage, released
here said.
The report was released by Rajiv Lall,
executive chairman, IDFC, a leading finance company.
The report said that the public health
system is in jeopardy, due to decades of appallingly low public investments,
inadequate and antiquated infrastructure, severe shortage of human resources
and inadequacies in government policies.
"Failed public health systems have
forced people to turn to the private sector, which is costly and unregulated,
with services often being provided by unqualified medical practitioners,"
it said.
It goes on to say that preventive and
primary healthcare have been marginalized with the focus having shifted to
curative tertiary care, higher importance of clinical medicine, and extremely
high dependence on clinical investigations.
"Health expenditures can be
prohibitively high with the rural population and the urban poor being the worst
sufferers," the report by IDFC said.
The report draws the readers' attention to some of the
emerging issues in the health sector such as rising burden of non-communicable
diseases and mental health, human resource crisis in health sector and health
concerns of informal sector workers, and steps required to attend to them
within the Universal Healthcare Framework.
Source: www.zeenews.india.com
25.09.2014
Bed-sharing bad for your baby
New York: Mothers of infants
who continue to share the bed with their babies may please take note that while co-sleeping is good,
bed-sharing may expose the babies to infections and other health risks, says a
study.
The biggest risk of bed sharing is
sudden infant death syndrome, the third leading cause of infant mortality in
the US.
"Co-sleeping and bed-sharing are
used interchangeably although they are not the same," said researcher
Trina Salm Ward from the University of Georgia in the US.
Co-sleeping means sleeping in the same
room as your infant in close proximity, Salm Ward explained. "Bed sharing
is when you actually sleep on the same surface as the baby. Co-sleeping is the
preferred option over bed-sharing," she noted.
Bed sharing can likely
be decreased if public health officials tailor messaging to their unique
population. For the study, the researcher reviewed literature on bed sharing.
In her research, Salm
Ward discovered the main reasons mothers chose to bed share included
breastfeeding, emotional comfort and reassurance, monitoring, better sleep for
infant, family traditions and bonding.
Although bed sharing is not recommended, she said that
mothers should know about infant sleeping suggestions.
"Infants should be sleeping in the supine position on
their backs," she said.
"They should never be face down since they cannot lift
their heads. They should also be on a firm surface without any pillows or
blankets," she added.
The study appeared in the Maternal and Child Health Journal.
Source: www.zeenews.india.com
25.09.2014
No amount of guilt can change
the PAST and no amount of worrying can change
the FUTURE
No comments:
Post a Comment