The quiet crisis in Indian primary care, and why no one is fixing it

India's health policy debate continues to be dominated by tertiary care: hospital rankings, advanced procedures, medical tourism. The primary-care layer — the general practitioner's clinic, the urban polyclinic, the rural sub-centre — receives a fraction of the attention and almost none of the capital.

This is the quiet crisis. Without a funded, dignified, well-supplied primary-care layer, every downstream reform — insurance, hospital rankings, digital health — eventually fails on its own terms.