Jaipur: Rajasthan passed the Right to Health (RTH) Bill in the Assembly on March 21. It is the first State in Country to pass RTH bill.
According to the bill each and every citizen should get free access to out-patient and inpatient services in all Government and selected private hospitals in the State. Several Medical firms opposed this bill. Many doctors felt that the bill will curb their business.
Before we understand the complexities of the protest against the RTH bill, it is essential to emphasise that Rajasthan is not a Healthy State by any standards. In 2022, in a report titled “Healthy States, progressive India”, the NITI Aayog, World Bank and the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, had placed Rajasthan at 16th position among 19 big States. As per the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-21), the infant mortality rate and the neo-natal mortality rate in the state are 30.3 per 1,000 live births and 20.2 per 1,000 live births, respectively. Such high rates of childhood mortality speak poorly of the healthcare infrastructure of the state. It is one of the states with highest levels of nutritional anemia among women and children.
The days are gone where the medical field has been considered as noble profession, now it has upgraded as business rather than service. As per a data, more than 78 per cent of healthcare in India is now delivered by private people. The private physician has thus nearly completely replaced the conventional government doctor and it is this private physician who is most unhappy with the RTH bill in Rajasthan.
The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has threatened to organise a national level protest against the RTH bill in the days to come. It is a known fact that most of the office-bearers of IMA are private practitioners and the election to various posts of the organisation are keenly fought on the basis of regional, political and monetary clout.