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Meenakshi Gautham
Meenakshi Gautham is a Research Fellow in Health Systems and Policy Analysis with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) where her work has explored different facets of India’s pluralistic health system at the primary level, with a special focus on maternal and child health. She is leading a research portfolio around the informal private health sector and ways of harnessing it both from a universal healthcare perspective and for addressing antimicrobial resistance in human and veterinary health. Her academic publications span the private sector and child health (British Medical Journal, 2018), public-private health data sharing (Health Policy and Planning, 2016) informal healthcare providers in India (Health Policy and Planning, 2014), and the nature of competition among private providers of maternity care in Uttar Pradesh, India (forthcoming). She is a leading advocate of mid-level providers’ training and deployment and has critiqued the Bhore Committee’s recommendations to abolish the medical Licentiate programme in 1946 ("The Basic Doctor: A Failed Promise", Economic and Political Weekly, 2010). Meenakshi holds a doctorate in Public Health and Policy from LSHTM and an M.Sc. in Child Development from the Lady Irwin College, Delhi University. She is the recipient of prestigious scholarships and grants such as from the Ford Foundation, India, and the Medical Research Council, UK.
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The role of informal rural healthcare providers in universal health coverage
Millions of private informal healthcare providers provide essential doorstep health services to rural households in India. The law has not succeeded in reducing the informal healthcare market as there are not enough alternatives in place to provide universal healthcare. In this note, Gautham, Kumar, and Chowdhury contend that we need to recognise the unique strengths of India’s pluralistic healthcare delivery system and enhance its contextual relevance rather than turning a blind eye to the elephant in the room.
