NEW DELHI: Corruption is “eating into” India’s overburdened healthcare system, the new health minister said in an interview published on Friday, promising a “thorough clean-up”.

The remarks by Health Minister Harsh Vardhan came after the British Medical Journal published an article late last month alleging rampant corruption in India’s healthcare system.

“As a doctor and former (state-level) health minister, I am more aware than anybody else of the corruption that is eating into the entrails of every aspect of governance, including the health system,” Vardhan told the Indian Express newspaper in an emailed interview.

Vardhan called bodies overseeing medical education corrupt and the organisation overseeing drugs standards a “snake pit of vested interests”. “I have inherited a poisoned chalice. But a revolution is coming,” Vardhan said.

He said “corrupt practices” had been exposed by several government agencies and Indian parliamentary committees in the past “so who am I to deny that it is going on?

“The British Medical Journal article by an Australian doctor who worked in an Indian hospital likened healthcare corruption in India to “a cancer” and said kickbacks and bribes oil every part of the country’s healthcare machinery.

For years, stories have abounded in India of medical college places being sold to the highest bidder, drug supplies being diverted from intended users and patients forced to bribe hospital personnel to see senior doctors.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2014