Speaking volumes about the poor status of health infrastructure in the country, a Government report has noted that there are just 6.28 lakh hospitals and 9.18 lakh allopathic medical practitioners for over 125 crore people, which is much below international standards.
The National Health Profile, 2013, released by Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Thursday also highlighted the disturbing gap in health facilities available to people as infant mortality rate, a key human development index, in Kerala was only 66 per 1 lakh live births while it was 328 in Assam in 2010-12.
According to the report, Delhi with 1511 cases accounted for the maximum number of swine flu victims while Gujarat at 196 reported most deaths. Madhya Pradesh reported maximum number of foeticide and infanticide cases.On the positive side, infant mortality rate in the country has declined from 47 in 2010 to 42 in 2012 and the total fertility rate also continues to fall as it was 2.4 in 2012, according to official figures.
The Union Health Minister has called for an advanced database health information system that can provide status of every health related issue across India.“The database information system will help to improve the global health security and act as evidence to frame policies and can help in knowing the impact of the policies,” Vardhan said as he sought details of all government and private hospitals, their facilities, prevalence of different ailments in different regions.
“If Election Commission, Census officials can have all details of 125 cr people of this country, then I am sure we can also do this,” he said.In his recent visit to the US, Vardhan said, he was shown real time health data being observed by the health officials there and it felt like a “war room”.