With little support from the state government, Punjabis pay more than three-quarter of the healthcare bill from their pocket.
The state health accounts report — which the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, and the Public Health Foundation of India in New Delhi have compiled for the year 2013-14 — states that the households in the state bear more than 76% of the treatment cost, while the government contribution is less than a fifth — 19.65%. In other words, for every Rs 5 spent on health care, government puts in just Rs 1.
The report was released at PGI on Thursday here.
In the year 2013-14, the current health expenditure in the state was ’13,414 crore, 4.2% of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP). Of this, the state contributed only a fifth (21.1%), which is less than 1% of the GSDP. Dr Shankar Prinja, associate professor of health economics at the PGI School of Public Health, said: “The extent of Punjab government’s spending in the public-health sector is very low. so the general public ends up spend more from own pocket.
The government spends just 0.9% of the GSDP on this, which is less than even the national figure of 1.2-to-1.3%.”
“Of every Rs 4 spent on health in the state, households contribute more than Rs 3 (76.5%), leading to inequity in spending and impoverishment due to catastrophic payments,” mentions the report. It explains that only 23% of resources are paid through pooling like health insurance, whereas 77% of payments are paid in cash. “It leaves a large section of Punjab’s population vulnerable to inadequate pre-payment and risk pooling mechanisms in health care financing,” reveals the report.
Almost (86%) of overall public health expenditure was on the wages and salaries of the human resource.
{{/usCountry}}Almost (86%) of overall public health expenditure was on the wages and salaries of the human resource.
{{/usCountry}}On the other hand, in case of private spending, maximum was on the consumption of medical goods (54%).