The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has criticised India for not offering palliative care or pain management to hundreds of thousands of people suffering from incurable diseases like cancer. In its latest report, the organisation also said that despite tall claims made by the government, there had hardly been significant access to health care.

“The Indian government has failed to ensure access to safe, effective, and inexpensive pain drugs,” says the five-page report from the Indian section of ‘World Report 2012’ which summarised human rights conditions in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide in 2011.

Though India is a rising economic superpower, it has neglected health care, the report said, terming it as gross violations of human rights. “More than half of the government-supported regional cancer centres still do not offer palliative care or pain management, even though more than 70 percent of their patients need it, resulting in severe but unnecessary suffering for tens of thousands,” said the New York-based organisation dedicated to defending and protecting human rights.

According to the National Cancer Registry Programme of the Indian Council of Medical Research, 535,767 cancer deaths were reported in India in 2011.

The Human Rights Watch report also took on India’s declining sex ratios and failure to curtail sex-selective abortions. It noted, “Despite considerable progress on maternal health, vast disparities remain and a spate of maternal deaths continues to be reported from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan states.”

It also criticised India for the overall human rights situation. “Custodial killings, police abuses including torture, and failure to implement policies to protect vulnerable communities marred India’s record in 2011,” the report highlighted. “Impunity for abuses committed by security forces also continued, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir, the northeast, and areas facing Maoist insurgency, the report pointed out.

It added, “India has yet to repeal laws or change policies that allow de jure and de facto impunity for human rights violations, and has failed to prosecute even known perpetrators of serious abuses.”

“New state controls over foreign funding of NGOs led to restrictions on legitimate efforts to protect human rights,” the report held.

The World Report 2012 also documented human rights abuses worldwide.

Read the India’s section of report

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