Data Related to Health Sector in India
Economic Survey 2023-2024
– Economic Survey 2024: “The Indian health system has been consistently revamped,” stated the report on the state of the Indian economy.
-Under the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Under the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY), launched in 2018 that gives Rs 5 lakh per year healthcare cover for underprivileged families for secondary and tertiary hospitalisation, 34.73 crore Ayushman Bharat cards have been generated.
-It said 7.37 crore hospital admissions have been covered by the scheme, with 49 per cent of the beneficiaries being women as of July 8, 2024.
-Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY), launched in 2018 that gives Rs 5 lakh per year healthcare cover for underprivileged families for secondary and tertiary hospitalisation, 34.73 crore Ayushman Bharat cards have been generated.
– It said 7.37 crore hospital admissions have been covered by the scheme, with 49 per cent of the beneficiaries being women as of July 8, 2024.
-The 10,000th Jan Aushadhi Kendra was inaugurated in AIIMS Deoghar, under the PM Jan Aushadhi Kendras programme that offers quality medicines at rates that are 50-90 per cent cheaper than market price.
-More than 300 Amrit pharmacies, that offer subsidised medicines for critical illnesses, are operating in different states and UTs.
-Under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) launched in 2021 that aims to create a national digital health ecosystem, 64.86 crore Ayushman Bharat Health Accounts (ABHA) have been created, 3.06 lakh health facility have been registered, and 39.77 crore health records have been linked with ABHA.
-The increase in mental health issues in children and adolescents is often linked to the overuse of the internet and, specifically, social media.
-Unrestrained and unsupervised use of the internet by children can culminate into a range of problems, from the more prevalent obsessive consumption of social media or “doom scrolling” to severe ones such as cyberbullying,” the Economic Survey 2024 stated.
UNION BUDGET
-The Health Ministry has been allocated ₹90,958.63 crore in the 2024-2025 budget, an increase from ₹80,517.62 crore in the 2023-24 revised estimates. The budget allocation for the AYUSH Ministry has been increased from ₹3,000 crore to ₹3,712.49 crore.
-The Centre’s flagship scheme, Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY), has got an allocation of ₹7,300 crore as compared with the previous allocation of ₹6800 crore.
-The government has allocated ₹36,000 crore to the National Health Mission (NHM). The budget allocation for the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has been raised from ₹2295.12 crore to ₹2,732.13 crore.
-The budget allocation for the National Tele Mental Health Programme has been increased from ₹65 crore to ₹90 crore.
-Additionally, the union finance minister announced full exemption of customs duty on three key cancer drugs to provide relief to cancer patients. The budget also announced cut in customs duty on components of Xray tubes and digital detectors.
General Trends in Health sector
-India has recorded several gains in health since the last decade by improving life expectancy,reducing fertility rates, reducing maternal and child mortality rate.
-Focused efforts have been
made to meet the targets set under Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Further, the share of public sector has also improved in the last five years.
-Globally, the size of the sector is $10
trillion. The Indian healthcare sector accounts for about $372 billion and is growing at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22%.
-The burden of communicable diseases like tuberculosis and malaria still remains high.
-Simultaneously, the incidence of non-communicable diseases like cancer, diabetes etc. is also increasing rapidly.
-Further, health sector in India is highly fragmented in terms of service providers. Significant proportion of the health needs (OPD and IPD) of the population are served by the private sector
(formal and informal).
-Further, the fragmentation is not just in terms of provision of healthcare in the country, but also in terms of other dimensions such as financing, service delivery, insurance coverage (risk
pooling), standardisation in use of IT/Technology, quality of care standards etc (NITI Aayog,2019).
-Unclear/uncontrolled referral pathways lead to random health seeking behaviour of patients among multiple levels in search for care (NITI Aayog, 2019).
-While continuum of care has been well conceived, the tertiary care institutions are serving a significant proportion of primary and secondary care requirements as well.
– Because of relatively weak primary care system and broken referral pathway, tertiary care public health facilities are often overburdened with primary and secondary care patients.
-Though evidence suggests improvement in health indicators, the affordability of healthcare still remains a key issue in the country.
-The major contributor to total healthcare expenditure is the out of pocket expenditure on healthcare (National Health Accounts, 2018).
-While public health falls under the State list, the Ministry of Health and Family welfare plays a critical role in shaping the sector through National Health Policies, centrally sponsored schemes,central sector schemes, and institutions for research & development.