Despite the Government’s high focus on promoting Indian medicines, there is a clear preference for allopathy treatment among the people. The latest National Sample Survey Office report on health has found that there is higher inclination towards allopathy treatment which is prevalent in around 90 per cent rural and urban areas with only five to seven per cent usage of ‘others’, which includes AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga or Naturopathy Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy).
However, interestingly, urban men preferred AYUSH more than rural men while urbam women had more liking for allopathic treatment compared to their rural counterparts. More men and women in rural India remained untreated than urban. Use of allopathy was most prevalent in treating the hospitalised cases of ailments.
With the reach of public health services limited, private doctors were major source of treatment in both urban and rural areas accounting for around 50 per cent of the treatments. In fact, more than 70 per cent of ailments were treated in the private sector (consisting of private doctors, nursing homes, private hospitals, charitable institutions, etc.) despite high cost of treatment. And the bad news is that nearly 86 per cent of rural population and 82 per cent of urban population were still not covered under any scheme of health expenditure support.