The National Family Health Survey-5 survey has revealed that half of the households in India do not go to government health centers for health services. It has been found in this survey that people did this because of the poor quality of public hospitals. Let us inform that the report of the National Family Health Survey conducted in 2019-21 was released by Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya last week.
According to the survey report, the percentage of households not using government health facilities during 2019-21 was around 49.9 percent. The same figure was 55.1 percent in the National Family Health Survey conducted in 2015-16.
Significantly, during 2019-21, the highest proportion of such families was in Bihar (80 percent), Uttar Pradesh (75 percent). The lowest 5 percent was found in Ladakh, Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. However, there was a slight decline in the number of households not using the government facility in Uttar Pradesh. In fact, in 2015-16, this ratio was 80.1% in UP.
In Uttarakhand too, where this ratio was 50.5 percent in 2015-16, it increased to 55.7 percent in 2019-21. At the same time, in this survey, reasons have been given for not taking advantage of government health facilities when people fall ill. According to the report, the most common reason people avoid availing government health services is due to poor quality of care in government hospitals.
Apart from this, the second most common reason is the long wait to get government facilities. In such a situation, 46 percent people did not take government facility due to this reason. At the same time, there are 40 percent of the families who do not have any government facility near their homes. According to the National Family Health Survey-5, 48 per cent of the households who did not get healthcare from government health facilities cited poor quality of care as the biggest reason.
According to the latest report, 46.9 percent of households in urban areas and 51.7 percent of households in rural areas used public hospitals during 2019-21. On the other hand, the proportion of households taking healthcare in private hospitals was 51.8 percent in cities and 46.4 percent in villages.