Rajeev Choudhury

Despite more healthcare workers being made available in recent years, rural India, home to over 65% of the population of the country is lagging behind in terms of healthcare services, data from the recently released rural health statistics for 2020-21 reveal.

The statistics, which were released by the Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Mandyaviya recently show that there is one doctor, including specialists for about 25,000 people available in the rural areas of the country.

The lack of specialist doctors is more acute with just 20% of the required strength available to serve the needs of the rural population with just 4,405 specialist doctors available against the need of 21,924, in the rural area.

Though the number of healthcare workers increased in 2021 by over 17 thousand across the country compared to that of 2020, the number of specialists in the rural area fell by 11% in 2021, the report reveals.

In terms of the shortfall of specialists, the shortfall of surgeons topped the list with  83% followed by 82% physicians, and 81% paediatricians.

Obstetricians and Gynaecologists fared a little better with a 74% shortfall, the data show.

A cursory look at the functional hospital data reveals an interesting picture.

Out of a total of 735 districts in the country, there were 757 functional district hospitals as of March 31, 2021.

However, a closer look at the data reveals that 149 or 20% of districts in the country did not have a functional hospital at the district level.

At the sub-district level, the situation is even grim with just 1225 sub-divisional hospitals being functional as of March 31, 2021, against 5,570 sub-districts in the country.

Among the states, Kerala led the health infrastructure with 47 functional district hospitals operating in 14 districts making the state have the most district-level hospitals at 3.4 functional hospitals per district, followed by UP where 168 district hospitals were functional in 75 districts at 2.4 functional district-level hospitals per district.

Telangana, with just 5 functional district hospitals as of March 31, 2022, was the least performing state in terms of rural health infrastructure.

The data further revealed that there is a 29% shortfall in primary healthcare facilities in the country, while the corresponding number for the Community Health Centre, which works as the first line referral centre, was 35%.