Public Health for All

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in books on the subject of public health and healthcare as we are living in the deadliest health crisis of modern times. But the edited volume, Universalising Healthcare in India: From Care to Coverage, gives a close look at the critical issues plaguing health systems in the country and attempts to ­answer the questions of “how” and “why” of the India’s healthcare crisis that it was confronting before the outbreak of pandemic itself. It documents the shift in the role of the state in the provisioning and financing of healthcare services which once upon a time was the hallmark of the welfare state policy in postcolonial India. It critically looks at the role of the state and the private sector in healthcare, and discusses major neo-liberal reforms since the early 1990s and its implications on the health of the population. Most importantly, it focuses on the transition in the role of the government in providing comprehensive primary healthcare (CPHC) in the context of Alma Ata Declaration of 1978. The declaration aimed at ensuring equitable, universal and integrated primary healthcare

as a need based comprehensive primary level service covering more than just clinical care and supported by secondary and tertiary care with a strong inbuilt referral support. (p 32)