Healthcare Challenges in the New Year

Dear Readers,

A very Happy New Year 2026 to all our readers! Double Helical, as a comprehensive national health magazine, remains dedicated to being a platform that celebrates the innovations, individuals, products, and services that are reshaping India’s healthcare landscape.
This month, we focus on the potential for progress in 2026. We examine key areas such as increased funding, the expansion of digital health, advancements in research and development, and the strengthening of public health infrastructure. Recent studies analysing the sustainability and resilience of India’s healthcare system offer critical guidance for future reforms.
The Union Budget 2025 marked a positive step, allocating increased funds to healthcare with the goals of improving infrastructure, accessibility, and preventive care. A significant emphasis was placed on digital health initiatives, including the expansion of telemedicine, the adoption of digital health records, integrated health information systems, and wider health insurance coverage. Policy-makers are also exploring the integration of Artificial Intelligence to provide advanced and equitable healthcare across the nation.
Simultaneously, breakthroughs in genetic engineering—particularly Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) technologies—have revolutionised genetic research with their immense potential for treating genetic diseases, improving crops, and more. In simple terms, a unique pattern of DNA sequences found in bacteria forms the basis of a powerful gene-editing technology. This system, often paired with a protein called Cas9 (making the full tool CRISPR-Cas9), allows scientists to precisely target, cut, and modify specific sections of an organism’s DNA, much like a pair of molecular scissors.
However, as our Special Story on Public Health underscores, India’s healthcare system faces deep-rooted challenges. Originally envisioned as a pyramid—with a broad, strong base of primary care supporting a narrower apex of advanced hospitals—decades of policy imbalances have inverted this structure. The result is a top-heavy, unstable system. Today, India ranks a dismal 145th globally in healthcare access, with internal disparities having widened into chasms.
Public health is defined as an organised societal effort to prevent disease, promote health, and prolong life. Its core aim is to provide care through the collective action of governments, communities, and professionals. In India, this ideal starkly contrasts with reality. The nation struggles profoundly to ensure accessible, available, and quality healthcare for its 1.4 billion citizens. This is not merely a logistical hurdle but a systemic failure, characterised by chronic underfunding. Health budgets consistently remain a small fraction of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), falling short of national targets and far below international benchmarks recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).
This underfunding is compounded by the inefficient use of existing resources. Allocated funds often fail to achieve their potential due to bureaucratic delays, corruption, and mismanagement. The crisis is intensified by the stark urban-rural divide. Metropolitan cities boast multi-specialty hospitals with cutting-edge technology, while rural areas frequently rely on understaffed and under-equipped Primary Health Centres (PHCs) that lack basic diagnostics and reliable medicine supplies.
Our cover story this month delves into the silent epidemic of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), projected to become the fifth leading cause of death globally by 2040 if unchecked. Once considered a rare, specialised ailment, CKD has burgeoned into a common yet dangerously overlooked public health crisis. The statistics reveal a profound failure in early detection; despite medical advances, deaths from kidney disease continue to rise inexorably.
The scale of the problem in India is particularly alarming. A landmark, population-based screening study by the Indian Society of Nephrology, covering 50,000 individuals across the country, revealed a truth we can no longer ignore: between 20 per cent to 30 per cent of Indian adults are now living with some degree of CKD. The most alarming finding is that the vast majority are completely unaware of their condition. This prevalence rate of nearly one-quarter of the adult population represents not just a statistic, but a silent tide of suffering and a future healthcare burden that threatens to overwhelm our systems. The urgency for widespread screening, awareness campaigns, and strengthening primary care to manage early-stage CKD has never been greater.
This edition is packed with more such insightful and thought-provoking stories. We hope they inform and inspire action.

Happy reading!

Thanks and regards

Amresh K Tiwary,
Editor-in-Chief