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Actions For Global Health, and ActionAid India. "India: People Standing up for Their Right to Health." YouTube. YouTube, 04 Dec. 2010. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. Ehealthpoint. "Healthpoint Services Transforms Rural Healthcare in India." YouTube. YouTube, 20 Sept. 2011. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. KenKW101. "India's Health Care System." YouTube. YouTube, 26 Oct.

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A quick introduction to Public-Private Partnership.flv

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Courtesy of UNECE. Video shown during Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) Days 2012, a four-day conference which brings together PPP practitioners from public sector PPP units and senior PPP executives worldwide to analyze and explore innovative PPP models and key policy issues.

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Open air roadside dental clinic in India. A cheap but unhygenic dental care option for the poor. Western dentists may earn US$500 to US$1000 per hour. This man works for US$30 per month and takes whatever fee a patient can give, or not.

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With its 28 states and 7 union territories containing a population of about 1.3 billion people, India struggles to maintain an efficient national healthcare system. In addition to this issue and besides the various public health problems and diseases prevalent in the country, there is a growing issue concerning dental care in India. Many western nations consider oral health as a basic part of general health, however that concept is unheard of in most of India and people have very poor attitudes towards oral healthcare in general. To make matters worse, the majority of the population lack proper healthcare and have major issues with access to care; more than half of the population receive little to no dental care at all nor receive any dental education or means of prevention, and this situation has led to dire consequences that should not be ignored any longer. The video displayed to the right gives a great overview of healthcare in India and shows that there can be a promising future if the right solutions and strategies are implemented.

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The Indian government has made progress with healthcare over the years but growing and continuing issues within the country has overshadowed their efforts. The government ultimately needs to take oral healthcare seriously in order for any plans to be implemented, and beyond the two main solutions mentioned, they need to collaborate more with other organizations, increase the budget for both general and oral health, and more importantly recognize that oral health is an integral part of one’s overall health. Public-private partnership and increasing the use of dental auxiliaries and portable dental services are just two of the many resolutions that can directly help with not only improving access to healthcare in both rural and urban-poor areas, but also help spread education and awareness about oral health that could improve prevention and change the negative attitude many people have towards oral healthcare in India. Overall and regardless of the vast population and other obstacles, the issue of dental care in India can be manageable if the right attention is given and steps of action are taken by the government and its ministries.

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The one institution in India that ultimately carries the responsibility of providing dental care to all citizens is the government. The Indian government has not completed ignored the issue of oral healthcare; however, they have failed to implement efficient plans to really improve dental care and spread awareness about its importance to overall health. Indian policy makers in the government have never included nor considered oral health in public health policies and oral health does not even have a specific separate allocation in the Indian budget. The government has also failed to provide dental health insurance or any oral health education or prevention programs to the public. Moreover, there is no proper planning or development in dental colleges in India and the government has been unsuccessful in getting graduating dentists to join the primary healthcare system in order to help the rural population. Such factors have contributed to the overall idea in India that oral healthcare is not really a basic or essential part of health, and this mentality has caused many issues because people do not take dental care seriously and end up suffering with overbearing or even fatal conditions.

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7. Dental Auxiliaries & Portable Dental Services

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7. Dental Auxiliaries & Portable Dental Services

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Increasing the use of dental auxiliaries and portable dental services is another solution that could improve oral health across the nation. The government can try a new method of hiring more dental auxiliaries such as registered hygienists, dental nurses, chair-side assistants, etc. Employing this group could play a huge part in providing oral health services throughout the country, and especially in rural areas where care is most needed. Portable dental services would be able to reach isolated areas that are overlooked and neglected and they would also be able to spread education, awareness, and prevention methods about oral health among the population, which could possibly help remove the negative stigma that exists in India towards dental care. To the right, there is a video that shows a short tour of a dental van in India. This van is able to travel to rural areas and provide people with dental care and oral health education. It is much more sanitary and safer compared to visiting a "street dentist" setup in the previous video shown.

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Having the Indian government implement a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is one solution that could help make a drastic difference to improve India's dental care. Instead of having two separate working and unequally treated sectors in this healthcare system, the PPP could improve oral health in the country and would be able to  combine the private sector interests and public sector goals, which could ultimately increase access to dental services everywhere and especially for rural and urban-poor areas. This partnership could also work to increase public expenditure on health aspects, reduce geographic imbalances in health across the country, and increase prevention measures for all regions. In addition, engaging the private sector as partners with the public sector would increase health promotion and disease prevention programs, which is terribly needed. The video to the left explains how a public-private partnership can work and help to solve issues efficiently.

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The Indian government has overall underfunded the healthcare system and has provided limited options for health insurance. These options have been inaccessible to the masses of India and do not provide proper coverage for poor people in urban slums and rural areas, which leaves the majority of the country uninsured and unable to receive any financial help when it comes to dental care and healthcare in general. Prevention is another huge issue in India’s healthcare system because of insufficient funding and disparity with regards to access especially for the poor in urban slums and rural areas. In addition, the rural and urban divide in India is reflected by the access problems, allocation of resources, and the lack of health care professionals and facilities. People living in rural/urban-poor regions simply cannot reach healthcare facilities that have sufficient resources and expert staff compared to people living in urban middle class and upper class areas. These issues have ultimately led to an unreasonable amount of deaths concentrated within rural and urban-poor regions of India that could have most likely been prevented if the healthcare system was not made to be so biased and negligent of the public sector.

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The current healthcare system in India consists of a divided and unequally treated public and private healthcare sector. The private sector mainly covers 30% of the population residing in wealthy urban areas, while 70% of people residing in rural and urban-poor areas are left to the often-overlooked public sector of healthcare. The private sector and practices receive more attention and priority than the public health sector, and this has caused the majority of the population to lack proper medical care. Health services in rural and urban-poor areas are provided by the public sector mainly through primary health centers; however, they are understaffed and insufficient. Overall, healthcare in India is very biased and favorable towards the private sector that caters to middle and upper class people, while the public sector that caters to rural/urban-poor areas, are neglected.

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Oral health problems are increasing drastically every year across the nation.  In Indian society, dental health is seen as less important than general health. People’s perceptions of dental care has greatly influenced attitudes towards dental health in India and many people actually perceive that dental treatment is painful and not important to begin with, thus they avoid even utilizing dental health services. In addition to these perceptions, the government and health practitioners have also failed to spread awareness to the public about how essential oral health is to one’s well-being. To make matters worse, the few options of health insurance that do exist in India, does not even cover dental treatments unless it is an emergency case. Extreme urban bias also exists within dental care as about 80% of dentists in India work in major cities, only tending to 31% of the urban population, while one dentist in rural India serves about 250,000 people on average. Most public dental healthcare setups are understaffed and insufficient and there are no posts for dental surgeons in rural primary health centers. The video displayed to the left shows a fraudulent dental setup on the streets in urban slums in. Poor people are forced to visit these unsanitary setups because they cannot access or afford proper dental care.