According to a recent Lancet study, India ranks 145th among 195 countries in terms of quality and accessibility of healthcare. India has ranked below its neighbours like China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan but better than Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Anyhow the study has mentioned that India has witnessed improvement in both parameters since 1990. The five countries with the highest levels of healthcare access and quality in 2016 were Iceland, Norway, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Finland and Australia (sharing same index). Meanwhile, the countries with the lowest scores were Central African Republic, Somalia, Guinea-Bissau, Chad and Afghanistan.
According the report, India hasn't performed well in tackling cases of tuberculosis, rheumatic heart diseases, Ischaemic heart diseases, stroke, testicular cancer, colon cancer and kidney diseases. The study used an index to measure the quality and accessibility of healthcare based on 32 causes of death which are preventable with effective healthcare. Interestingly, the study underlined how India and China had widest disparities in Healthcare access and quality whereas results from Japan indicate least disparity. Among the Indian states, Goa and Kerala fared the best whereas Assam, UP scored lowest.
