India is facing a health crisis that says a lot about the state of its healthcare systems. More than 100 children have died due to an outbreak of encephalitis in the eastern state of Bihar. The patients are usually in small towns and rural areas where medical facilities are strained.

Public hospitals are in a shabby state and struggling to cope with streams of patients. All of this impacts the poor the most, as they are unable to afford the state-of-the-art private medical facilities available in big cities.

Public expenditure on healthcare in India is quite low, but last year, the government announced an ambitious health insurance scheme. Can it make healthcare more accessible? And what role can technology and telemedicine play in improving the quality of healthcare?

Presenter: Devina Gupta

Contributors: Shobana Kamineni, executive vice-chairperson, Apollo Hospitals Group; Prof K Srinath Reddy, president, Public Health Foundation of India; Dr Yogesh Jain, co-founder, Jan Swasthya Sahyog (JSS) health non-profit

Image: Relatives visit child patients who suffer from acute encephalitis syndrome in a hospital ward in Muzaffarpur, in the eastern state of Bihar, India (Credit: Alasdair Pal/Reuters)