Healthcare as a human right, NHRC to organise conference

Cautioning that India's dismal performance in health indicators where it is in the league of some of the poorest countries could hamper its growth, NHRC today said it will organise a national conference to discuss the issue of "healthcare as a human right" in November.
"Health is a human right, all of us have an inherent right to good living conditions. It is out of this concern, that we are hosting this conference. The reason why we felt it necessary to host such a conference is that on various health indicators, our country lags behind the other countries.
"What to say in comparison of the developed world, we have the dubious distinction of being in the league of some of the poorest countries of the world," said National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) member S C Sinha.

The per capita income of Bangladesh is 50 per cent of India's, but there infant immunisation is 96 per cent "while in our country it is only 72 per cent. The same is true in infant immunisation of measles. Look at the Life Expectancy at birth in Bangladesh. It is 69 while it is 65 in India," he said.
"I am not even talking about Sri Lanka and China. The only country which is behind us is Pakistan, all other countries are ahead of us," said Sinha.
This is the curtain raiser of the conference on universal healthcare that the NHRC is organising at the India International Centre on 5th and 6th of November.

Delegates from across the country, government sector, NGOs working in the sector of health, Medical Council of India and other reputed institutions will participate in the conference
Participants from neighbouring countries namely Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have also been invited, Sinha told reporters here.
He said the country may have developed economically in the last two decades, but it has fared out poorly when it comes to health indicators.