Articles by George Thomas

A close look at the major recommendations on human resources in the report of the High Level Expert Group on Universal Health Coverage for India shows that most of them are timely and have been made in the right spirit. Some lacunae do exist, especially on medical education and specialisation. But the most important issue is whether the recommendations can and will be efficiently implemented to give shape to a non-competitive, high quality medical system that provides all possible preventive and curative services to every citizen in the country.

Morbid Symptoms: Health under Capitalism - Socialist Register 2010 edited by Leo Panitch and Colin Leys (Delhi: LeftWord ), 2010; pp xiv + 324, Rs 350.

The arrest of the president of the Medical Council of India on charges of corruption and the body's dissolution have exposed the extortion racket that the regulatory body had been turned into. In its place the government has appointed a panel of doctors. However, this panel must make way for a regulatory body that will be accountable not only to the government and the medical community but also to the public at large.

A government which believes that medical education and healthcare are best provided by the private sector is deliberately starving government hospitals of funds. Until a clear plan to ensure health for all is in place and the poor demand medical care as a fundamental right, public health services will remain skewed and unjust.