Amartya Sen calls for access to health care

Kolkata: Feb 18, 2011

Just as the country has guaranteed the right to education for all, there is a need for the right to universal access to public health care, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen said. In health there is not even a promise. We want to press for it,” Dr. Sen told journalists at an event to announce the setting up of the Pratichi Institute in Kolkata. He said that in India there was an over-reliance on the private sector in health care that had led to “a situation in which quite often very poor peasants are exploited.” Citing the example of universal healthcare in every country in Europe, America, Canada, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore, he said people in India should have a right to public health. “We want the same here,” he added.

Read more