Haryana, which is home to 25 million people, is spending just Rs 1,119 per capita health expenditure, lesser than its neighboring states of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh.
The per-person health expenditure is Rs 2,667 in Himachal Pradesh while it is Rs 1,173 in Punjab.
Also, Haryana Government had spent a meager 0.63 percent of its Gross State Domestic Product for health sector in 2015-16, revealed the National Health Profile 2018, released by the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence, under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
The neighboring States of Punjab and Himachal had spent 0.87 percent and 1.68 percent respectively of their GSDP on health sector.
Signifying the acute shortage of manpower and massive gaps in health infrastructure, the National Health Profile 2018 shows that there are only 16 specialists working in community health centres and there are 429 doctors at primary health centres in the entire Haryana.
There is one government allopathic doctor in Haryana for every 10189 patients, a ratio which is nearly ten times more than the WHO-recommended doctor-patient ratio of 1:1000.
Each of the 2618 allopathic doctor is serving a population of 10189 patients in Haryana whIle there is one government hospital bed for every 2496 people and one state-run hospital for every 42001 persons. There is one dental surgeon serving a population of 47129 in the state, the NHP stated.
The State has 2,589 sub centres, 366 PHCs and 112 CHCs, as per the NHP -2018. The reference period for various statistics varies from year 2015 to 2017.
The NHP 2018 showed Haryana’s projected population at 2.8 crore as on March 2018.
The 11th Common Review Mission (CRM) report of the National Health Mission released this week also pointed out shortcomings in healthcare sector in Haryana.
“lack of availability of gynecologists, pediatricians and anesthetists still remains an impediment in operationalizing first referral units (FRUs) at Community Health Centres in Haryana. Besides, there is no dedicated HR cell to look after core HR functions including recruitment, postings/ transfers, training need assessment, HR data management among others at the state as well as district level in Haryana,” the report observed.
Referring to the human resources for health sector, the report stated that in State Programme Management Unit (SPMU) of NHM, crucial posts of state programme manager, state accounts manager and state data manager were vacant. Various such posts including District Programme Manager, District Account Manager, District Data Manager were lying vacant in District Programme Management Unit (DPMUs) of some districts too, it stated.
The CRM report stated, “There is 34 percent of shortage of medical officers in urban PHCs of Haryana. In Gurugram, 8 posts of MOs are vacant out of 18 sanctioned posts. It was observed that the UPHCs (Urban Primary Health Centres) were managed by pharmacists and staff nurses in the absence of medical officers.”
Out of 37661 home deliveries registered in year 2016-17, only 5045 were conducted by SBA (Skilled Birth Attendant), it pointed out.
The (CRM) report added that Haryana is facing challenges of acute shortage of manpower (doctors, staff nurses, pharmacists) at sub-district level and lack of quality supervision, inaccessibility to safe abortion services at the sub-district level and delay in selection process of candidates.
