SDG targets on maternal and child health and access of doctors in India

ABSTRACT

There is an acute shortage of doctors in India, especially in rural areas. It does not even meet WHO’s 2008 benchmark of a minimum requirement of 25 healthcare professionals per 10,000 population. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set ambitious targets on maternal and child health and ‘health for all’ by 2030. The paper aims to critically examine the current and required capacities of training and distribution of doctors in the country to ensure meeting SDGs on maternal and child health and ‘health for all’ objective by 2030. The study used a simple regression model using the WHO data on 161 countries to estimate the coefficients of the density of physicians, nurses and mid-wives, pharmacists and the percent of child-births attended by skilled health personnel impacting maternal mortality, infant mortality and under-five mortality respectively. The estimated coefficients are used to conjecture the required densities of the above health workers for meeting the SDGs on maternal and child health in India. It is found that to achieve the desired SDG targets, India needs to double its densities of physicians and pharmacists and enhance the childbirths attended by skilled health workers to 100 percent from the current levels by 2030. It also suggests that India needs alternative allopathic practitioners, apart from doctors, mainly for rural areas to ensure ‘health for all’.

KEYWORDS:

• SDG targets
• health
• India
• doctors
• migration
• sustainable workforce

Acknowledgment

The author is grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their insights and comments on the paper. The infrastructure support provided by the FORE School of Management, New Delhi is greatly appreciated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Basant Potnuru has acquired his PhD in ‘Economics of Education’ from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Currently, Associate Professor of Economics and Business Policy at FORE School of Management, New Delhi. Prior to this, he has worked as Head of Research & Projects at the India Centre for Migration, a think-tank of the Ministry of External Affairs (formerly, Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs), Government of India, New Delhi. He has 14 years of job experience in teaching and research. His areas of research interests are economic growth, international labour migration and health. To his credit, he has published many research papers and policy briefs in the national and international peer reviewed journals and edited books.