Abstract

India's central and state governments have significantly increased basic health care infrastructure and introduced several important health schemes to reduce morbidity and increase quality of health and life expectancy. NHM is committed to provide accessible and essential health services to every citizen of India especially rural and tribal people. This fact indicates the concern and commitment of the government towards rural and tribal health. However, despite the committed efforts of the government, many issues such as excessive use of alcohol, tobacco and other intoxicants, lack of health literacy, animal attacks, unrealistic healthcare beliefs, disease burden and high birth and death rates are still prevalent in tribal areas, which are different and more complex than other contemporary communities. This fact indicates that due to many reasons the benefits of various health schemes and services are not reaching effectively to the tribal areas properly. Against this backdrop, the present paper aims to critically review and discuss the inadequate rural healthcare infrastructure and personnel in India with a detailed focus on tribal health issues and their causes.

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