Health Is Wealth

As the saying goes “Health is Wealth”, a great asset that a country can own is a healthy population with high working efficiencies and greater life expectancy, thereby contributing to the growth and development of the nation. For the people, access to better healthcare is a human right. We have succeeded in eradicating polio out of the country. But we as a nation, still lack in achieving healthy lives of our people, especially the poor, both urban and rural. We spend 4% of our GDP on healthcare, but the access to proper diagnosis, consultation and medication still has barriers to overcome.

India can improve in uplifting the health of its people with improvements in basic health amenities - sanitary facility, clean drinking water, controlled

As the present day population sticks to screen for a longer duration, resulting in inactivity, sports need to be popularized especially in urban areas. In 1995 China adopted a Physical Health law to promote sports among its people, thereby, setting up sports facilities, gymnasiums, and building up 6 lakh stadiums. And its result was seen in Beijing 2008 Olympics where they won 50 gold medals which is more than three times their gold medal tally of Summer Olympics 1996. We too need a better policy and participation in this regard, so as to have better sports facilities with reach to all people and financial condition should not be a barrier in it. Sports can be popularized in a cooperative manner too. As an example to this, Isha foundation, an NGO, organizes Isha Gramotsavam across the villages of Tamil Nadu which inculcates sports and recreational activities for children, youth, elder people, men and women for a month every year. Spreading such an idea of conducting sports and games throughout the country would be truly beneficial to foster a healthy spirit of competition, higher self-esteem, improved communal harmony, better health and enhanced

Today we see a Nobel Prize award in medicine for work in traditional Chinese medicine, it questions that why has Ayurveda not given such consideration which too is based on herbal methods. India feels proud to be home to Ayurveda with natural medicines and therapy, increasing popularity of which in medical tourism revives faith in its efficacy. Expanding Ayurveda to a large reach would bring about a solution to costly medicines, yet with no side effects as in allopathy. Promoting the herbal and traditional remedies can be deterministic in providing within reach and economic solution. With the UN recognizing 21st June as International Yoga Day this year, the simplicity and effectiveness of Yoga to keep mind and body in rhythm is surely a great initiative for bringing peace and harmony together with health benefits. Ayurveda too would be as useful to everyone as Yoga has been. We should bring back our old system of traditional practices if we wish to look for an economic alternative.

As India looks forward to become a developed and prosperous nation, we need building healthcare facilities to be within the reach of poor. Post-independence we have succeeded in bringing down death rates, increased life expectancy from 32 in 1947 to 66 in 2012, and reduced infant mortality rate from 146 in 1951 to 37 in 2008. Acknowledging these achievements we need