Healthcare aggravates poverty in India?

Additional 39 million people fall into poverty annually in India by health-care expenditures, according to a study published in ?The Lancet? medical journal headquartered in London.

It further reveals that healthcare inequalities prevail and are related to socioeconomic status, geography, and gender, and are compounded by high out-of-pocket expenditures, with more than three-quarters of the increasing financial burden of health care being met by households. ?Health-care expenditures exacerbate poverty?, it adds.

Religious statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) on Wednesday, said that India should wake up to the monumental healthcare crisis and serious inequities in health, and provide universal health-care coverage to its citizens.

Founded by Thomas Wakley in 1823, ?The Lancet? is one of world?s leading medical journals with offices in London, New York, and Beijing. Richard Horton is the editor.