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https://scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3084005/coronavirus-crisis-exposes-global-need-spend-more-health-care Letters
Coronavirus crisis exposes global need to spend more on health care
Crocheted bears wearing face masks, made by a patient, displayed in the Covid recovery ward at the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge on May 5. Britain, like several other countries, scrambled to build hospitals and buy ventilators as the pandemic spread. Photo: Bloomberg
The Covid-19 pandemic should lead nations to introspect about how much they are spending on health care for their citizens. In many countries, people infected with the deadly coronavirus have had to worry about whether they would get a bed or a ventilator in a hospital. Some patients died while waiting for a hospital bed. Doctors in Europe have had to make hard decisions on which patient to allocate the limited ventilators to. These are agonising times.
Many countries spend as little as one or two per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) annually on health care. For instance, India spends about 1.28 per cent of its GDP on public health, among the lowest in the region, according to the latest National Health Profile data.
India has about six government hospital beds per 10,000 in the population. Germany has about 80 beds and Japan 130 beds per 10,000 citizens. There is also a desperate shortage of intensive care unit beds and ventilators. After the Covid-19 challenge, every country should ensure that at least five per cent of GDP is spent on public health, so that, in an emergency, there are adequate hospitals, beds, staff and protective equipment.
Nations spend billions of dollars on guns and other weapons every year. We need to ponder afresh.
Rajendra Aneja, Mumbai