Democracy in healthcare India being a democratic country, guarantees equality for its citizens; however the current situation

clearly depicts equality as an element guaranteeing just the voting rights and not the right to live a healthy life in ones country. chieving quality !ealthcare is the "ey objective for governments across the world, especially in the emerging economies. In a country li"e India where the deaths and morbidity due to #on $ommunicable Diseases %#$Ds& is increasing even when the technological advances have failed to contain the deaths due to infectious diseases, has made the challenge to attain quality healthcare twofold. 'ituation being this, the increasing healthcare costs, unaccounted privatization and deteriorating public health care has alienated common man from accessing quality healthcare. (he recent article in )ritish *edical +ournal denouncing the Indian healthcare system, stating that the chance of a patient being diagnosed rightly is less than ,- percent should be given undue importance by the healthcare syndicate including the government and policyma"ers to devise policies which could facilitate quality healthcare for all. (he lac"adaisical progress in the universal health insurance scheme and the recent budgetary announcements li"e reduction in the spending towards the #ational .ural health *ission and non compliance to long standing demand to reduce the import duties on medical devices has sidelined the objective of attaining quality healthcare. 'o it high time that the policy ma"ers should assiduously ta"e cue of the disease incidence and healthcare needs to devise policies which could really bring democracy in healthcare guaranteeing the right to live a healthy life in this country.