Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Indicators of health has not improved

India’s standing on most indicators of health has not improved, and the government has failed to play the role that was expected from it, says Vikas Kumar

Now the time has come, indeed, to do some serious introspection. Public spending on health was 0.9% of GDP. However, even after five years it is just 1% of national GDP. It is a data which puts us at the bottom, with only four countries to spare. The states are worse. Due to fiscal mismanagement, states have decreased their spending from 4.5% in 1999-2000 to 3.6% in 2008-09. One of the populist announcements of UPA was to increase the number of Primary Health Centres by 50% and then by upto 75%. However, the percentage of vacant doctor posts in the Primary Health Centres has also increased from 13.36% in 2001 to 18.04% in 2007. If this is not enough, as per the report of Ministry of Rural Health Statistics of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoH&FW), 50% of sub-centers, 24% of PHCs and 16% of CHCs function out of rented or temporary premises. Also, the Indian health sector is one of the most privatised in the world. Only 12 countries are ahead in terms of private spending on health.

The prevalence rate of underweight children below five years in India is 43%, even lower than 28% in sub-Saharan Africa. As per the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-3, 46% of children below 3 years of age were under weight. Percentage of anemic children between 6-35 months increased to 79.2% in 2005-06, from 74.2% in 1996-97. The nutritional condition of children has remained static over the last past five years, which clearly shows that the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) program aimed at promoting child health and nutrition is also not working.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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