Kumar Virendra, Singh Pushpendra
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee 247667, Uttarakhand, India.
Natl Med J India. 2016 Sep-Oct;29(5):267-273.
Access to healthcare is crucial for meeting the health needs of Indians. We explored factors impeding access to public sources of healthcare among the Empowered Action Group (EAG) states of India. We also examined the extent to which Indians depend on public and private sources of healthcare in the EAG states.
Our study is based on the unit-level records of 9988 ailing persons, who were surveyed among the EAG states in the 71st round of the National Sample Survey (NSS), conducted during January-June 2014 on the theme 'Social consumption: Health'. To analyse the socioeconomic factors, we did logistic regression using STATA version 12.0.
Despite a vast public health infrastructure in the EAG states, around three-fourths of inpatients are dependent on private sources of healthcare in both rural (70%) and urban (78%) areas. Poor quality and long waiting time in accessing healthcare from public health facilities remain big concerns for inpatients of the EAG states.
To make public health services more accessible, there is a need to improve the quality of services, enlarge infrastructure to reduce waiting time, and enhance the physical reach to inpatients in the EAG states of India. Public health services will then be able to compete with those in the private sector.
获得医疗保健服务对于满足印度人的健康需求至关重要。我们探讨了阻碍印度弱势群体行动小组（EAG）邦居民获得公共医疗保健服务的因素。我们还研究了EAG邦居民在多大程度上依赖公共和私人医疗保健服务。
我们的研究基于9988名患病者的单位层面记录，这些患者是在2014年1月至6月进行的第71轮全国抽样调查（NSS）中，于EAG邦接受调查的，该轮调查主题为“社会消费：健康”。为了分析社会经济因素，我们使用STATA 12.0版本进行了逻辑回归分析。
尽管EAG邦拥有庞大的公共卫生基础设施，但在农村（70%）和城市（78%）地区，约四分之三的住院患者依赖私人医疗保健服务。从公共卫生设施获得医疗保健服务时质量差和等待时间长，仍然是EAG邦住院患者的重大担忧。
为了使公共卫生服务更容易获得，有必要提高服务质量、扩大基础设施以减少等待时间，并增强印度EAG邦住院患者的实际可及性。这样公共卫生服务将能够与私营部门的服务竞争。
