Health Care System in India has laid too much emphasis on hospitals and hospitalization. In the process, two important constituents of the system Home Health Service and Palliative Care have remained Peripheral. Almost neglected. There have been Mobile Medical Units, Community Camps, and door to door immunization campaigns. The system is however beginning to rapidly support privatization of health care initiatives under the guise of bringing about improvements in the inefficient and cost insensitive public health care system. Public Private Partnership is being introduced largely with a view to supporting the Private Health Care Industry with the support of the Private Health Care Insurance Industry. The state is rapidly abdicating it welfare responsibilities and is pushing the citizens to the vagaries of the market forces.
If that is going to be the trend in the coming years, citizens have a right to demand efficient, cost effective and regulated functioning of the entire health care industry. Two innovations that will influence the health care system efficient that is and accountable to the citizens are the Home Health Service and the obligation to introduce Palliative Care. Palliative care, both for the elderly and others suffering from end of life. It ailments needs to be viewed as part of the right to life with dignity that includes the right to die in dignity.
The present collection of papers provides a perspective on Palliative Care for the Elderly insofar it includes the struggle for its inclusion in the Health Care System, some experimental projects and the efforts to make it a part of the home and the neighbourhood.
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