The popular saying goes "Health is Wealth," but in today's world we can say that Good Health and Well-Being makes for personal wealth while Good Health Care Builds National Wealth and is the basis for Sustainable Development.
Hence the third sustainable development goal (SDG 3) Good Health and Well-Being is a major development indicator and driver of development especially sustainable development. Infant and maternal mortality rates have long been key development indicators but post-pandemic access to affordable and quality health care, overall population morbidity and mortality, mental health services and access to counseling, metabolic and lifestyle diseases, especially diabetes, bone and joint health, eye health, stroke risk, cardiac and renal (heart and kidney) health and infectious diseases have been put front and center in health management.
A news article from Times of India from yesterday (September 28, 2026) indicated that more working age men (16-64 years) from across India (~60.6%) but especially in Tamil Nadu (~86%) are dying than ever before. The cause includes poor lifestyles, undiagnosed metabolic conditions such as cardiac and kidney disease as well as road accidents, substance abuse, etc.
Meanwhile Indian women survive "working age" but overall Indians women's life expectancy (73-4-73.9 years) and quality of life and health is not ideal. Women neglect their health because they know there's no one to care for them and their family if they are admitted for treatment. They suffer through and ignore their symptoms till collapse, always busy with the invisible load of family caregiving. No surprise then that blood pressure and heart attack are deemed "silent killers" in women across board and patients from poorer sections of society without access to health care - the conditions go undiagnosed till they kill!
Well-Being
Our health is always imperiled in a world where food adulteration abounds; where we breathe polluted air, drink water made potable through reverse osmosis that removes vital minerals and nutrients along with pollutants and toxicity; where one health emergency and hospitalization can impoverish patients and their families when there is access to health care or without access to health care lead to death and disability. Health insurance exists in many forms in India - rural and urban - but overall medical emergencies in India mean huge out of pocket expenses that break household budgets
But all is not bleak. Many "Health Innovations" abound that enable affordable and quality "Last Mile Health" including a great international NGO with the same name enabling health care in remote, rural and impoverished areas across the globe.
Health influencers on social media, health counsellors as well as virtual mental health counselling services, medical and lifestyle management apps, tele-medicine (e.g., Telemedicine Society of India) and Artificial Intelligence - Machine Learning (AI-ML) Clinics are also proliferating enabling remote access to quality health care.
There are many success stories from Pinky Promise, "India's first AI-enable digital and physical women's clinic" including one shared by my friend on LinkedIn. In a world where, even when women eventually go for a health consultation their condition is diagnosed as either stress, perimenopause, PCOS or weight related (the modern equivalent to the all-encompassing hysteria diagnosis of the Victorian Age), doctors and AI-ML clinics that listen and map women's symptoms and cure them is a true marvel and miracle worth appreciating and applauding.
How a Medical Emergency Impoverishes
Paying out of pocket during medical emergencies keeps the less well-to-do and uninsured parts of the population trapped in cycles of poverty. A recent NITI Aayog blog post outlines how a medical emergency in a poor family - a child's health care - keeps a vast majority of Indians trapped in poverty:
- High OOPE (Out of Pocket Expenses)
- Loss of Household Income
- Hardship Selling or Borrowing Using Assets
- Debt Trap
- Medical Disability, Job Loss & Loss of Income
- High Costs of Medicines Taken Daily
Talking Medical Tourism
All said and done in urban India medical services and access to quality and affordable health care is better than in many developed countries. This demographic and medical advantage has inadvertently led to a proliferation of Medical Tourists to India. With World Tourism Day falling on September 27th annually and it make sense to mention the prevalence of Medical Tourism especially in India. This Firstpost report explains the Indian medical advantage clearly.
Rise of Health Influencers
In a world of misinformation and busy doctors and health workers with endless patients and paperwork the new voice of authority is the social media health influencer.
Doctors have less than five minutes face time with most out-patients (those not admitted, who come for a consultation). The gap in care and hand holding which used to be filled by fitbits, "googling symptoms" and "Asking Alexa" is now dominated by social media's medical influencers, lifestyle influences, traditional medicine influencers as well as nutrition influencers and generally health influencers - qualified and unqualified - who communicate well as capture an audience worried about symptoms a busy medical practitioner ignores in person!
Care Workers
India's demographic dividend is apparent in the booming numbers of health care workers much in demand across urban India and around the world. With the world population aging rapidly as well as climate change and uncertain local economies making migration from rural to urban and India to the world inevitable, health care workers and senior care workers are growing fields of employment in labor rich India with millions living below the poverty line looking for a way out.
With many Indians working and settled abroad with aging parents still in India, there is a huge boom in assisted living facilities for senior citizens. Instead of training just nurses who require college degrees and registrations, These institutions also recruit and train health care workers in masses. Many Corporate Social Responsibility projects and Church charities are training high school graduates in rural India as nursing aids, rural health care workers, senior care assistants, health care worker as well as nurses. Demand for them is enormous and for now this is a booming field of vocational training with employment guarantee. India has long exported trained and efficient nurses all over the world - more than the many Indian doctors who emigrate. Now the next labor export are all kinds of health care workers.
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