Strengthening primary healthcare can better life expectancy: Leading surgeon

Citing Thailand as an example, Dr Gawande said the southeast Asian country improved the life expectancy of its citizens by increasing the number of rural health centres

Strengthening primary healthcare at the local level could be a way to improve life expectancy in India, Dr Atul Gawande, an American surgeon and an author, who is also the global health chief of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), said on Friday.

Atul Gawande became an assistant administrator for global health at USAID in January 2022 (Mint)

“Earlier, our understanding was that to achieve a high life expectancy, a country needs to be in the high-income bracket, but we observed that there are middle and low-income countries that managed to come close to the life expectancy of countries like the US and the UK by investing in healthcare systems,” Dr Gawande said during a lecture at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in the national capital.

Citing Thailand as an example, Dr Gawande said the southeast Asian country improved the life expectancy of its citizens by increasing the number of rural health centres and involving local communities in preventive health check-ups in the 1970s and 80s.

Instead of constructing new hospitals in urban areas, Thailand focused on building rural district hospitals and health centres to improve physical and financial accessibility.

“By setting up rural health centres and village healthcare teams, Thailand is trying to achieve preventive and supervisory healthcare for its citizens so that illnesses can be detected and managed before it aggravates – catch people before they get sick and direct them to the required care,” he said.

Dr Gawande became an assistant administrator for global health at USAID in January 2022. Prior to joining US president Joe Biden’s administration, he was a practicing general and endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

He also co-founded CIC Health – a public benefit corporation supporting pandemic response operations nationally – and served as a member of the Covid-19 Advisory Board that was announced in 2020 as part of Biden’s presidential transition.