Healthcare expenditure by Mumbaikars is on the rise: Report

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Various announcements have been made by the Centre in the recent past as part of the 'Ayushman Bharat' scheme. Many of these are aimed at strengthening primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare systems in the country.

However, Mumbai's public healthcare system is yet to catch up. As of 2018, health facilities across Mumbai had 74 medical, para-medical and nursing personnel for one lakh citizens, according to a report.

The report titled 'The State of Health in Mumbai' released by the NGO, Praja Foundation, also points out that dispensaries, which are necessary to ensure basic healthcare service delivery at the local level, are not being prioritised by the government. The report noted that there is roughly one public dispensary for 64,468 people, while the National Urban Health Mission prescribes one public dispensary for every 15,000 citizens.

The numbers are telling as they highlight how far behind the city is from the 2030 target of ensuring 550 government physicians, nurses and midwives for one lakh citizens, as adopted by India under UNDP's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

Around 74 percent of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai's (MCGM) health budget’s revenue expenditure in 2017-18 was spent on hospitals, while only 26 percent was on dispensaries, the report added.

Government outpatient department (OPD) numbers for the city in 2018 showed that 76 percent of the total OPD patients, which are patients that do not need to be treated overnight, went to government hospitals, while only 24 percent went to dispensaries. This is indicative of the quality of basic healthcare services available at dispensaries, due to which patients preferred accessing hospitals for the same.

Source: Praja Foundation report

The Praja Foundation also undertook a household survey, wherein almost 49 percent of the respondents said that they availed private healthcare facilities instead of public ones.

Meanwhile, even as the government has introduced and put in place health insurance schemes like the Ayushman Bharat and Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, the report said that only 27 percent of the respondents in the survey were aware of any such schemes. Consequently, Mumbaikars are spending a fair chunk of their income on healthcare, a number which has gone up from 7.8 percent in 2017 to 9.7 percent in 2019.

A set of indicators highlight how far behind the city is when compared to the national SDG targets for 2030.

Source: Praja Foundation report