Not in pink of health

THE LATEST REPORT BY the National Statistical Office shows some sobering signs about public health in India, at a time when the health system as a whole is stressed. The report is based on the consumption expenditure survey of 2017-2018.

The report found the proportion of people reporting any sort of ailment dropped between July 2017 and June 2018, compared to January-june 2014. Only 9.1 per cent people reported any ailment in cities, compared to 11.8 per cent in the earlier period. In the rural area (chart 1), the proportion came down from 8.9 per cent to 6.8 per cent. Chart 2 shows that hospitalisations dipped as well.

Richer households tend to use hospitalisation services more. This could also mean that the poorer ones may not have been able to afford, and avoided hospitalisation. About a third of hospitalisations in the rural are represented by the top 20 per cent richest families, shows chart 3.

Infectious diseases still occupy the lion’s share in hospital admissions, but noncommunicable diseases are catching up, shows chart 4.

Chart 5 suggests that the need to borrow for medical treatment has gone down, and people spend their savings. At the same time, though the spending per hospitalisation case has increased in nominal terms, a quick calculation using a deflator shows that real spending has reduced (chart 6). This is in line with the trends visible in the leaked consumer spending survey that the government junked.

Finally, the survey underlined once again that a very small proportion of India’s population avails health insurance (chart 7).