The Kalahandi episode has brought to the fore the shocking facts of poor ambulance density in State as Odisha is placed at 4th from the bottom among the high-focus States in the country in 2015-16, other than the North Eastern States. The high-focus States have the poorest health infra and high disease/patient load in the country.
Odisha with around three ambulances per lakh population is at the 6th place in the ten high-focus States in the country and is trailing behind the States like Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Odisha, however, ranks higher than Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar, reveals the latest data available till March end 2016.
Significantly, J&K with around 8 ambulances per lakh population tops the ten high-focus group and Jharkhand with over 7 was in the second slot. Himachal closely followed Jharkhand with 6.6 ambulances per lakh population. Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand have around 4 ambulances per lakh people while Bihar was at the bottom with mere 1 per lakh people.
Sample this: Odisha currently has a fleet of around 1,250 ambulances in service of patients and related transport issues. On the contrary, Jharkhand with 27 per cent less population than Odisha has around 50 per cent higher number of ambulances in service. This comparative statement indicates the ambulance-deficit level in Odisha.
It is not that Odisha did not make a quantum progress in the patient transport arena. The State did avail the NRHM funds well to increase the density of ambulance fleet in the State by a whopping 648 per cent in mere three years (2013-16), thereby
achieving the minimum WHO norm of having at least one ambulance per lakh population and one ambulance per 70,000 tribal or hilly population.
If in-patient load at public hospitals criterion in 2015-16 was to be looked at, Odisha with around 6.5 per cent of its population in IPD (in-patient department) figured as the 4th State in the high-focus group with maximum indoor load after J&K, Himachal and Rajasthan. Indeed, Rajasthan and Odisha have only a hairline difference as Rajasthan with 6.6 per cent of its population at IPD is marginally behind Odisha. Bihar, UP, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have a lesser in-patient load to population ratio in the range of around 1.2-3.7 per cent.
Given the backdrop in Odisha depicted above, what, however, pushes the penniless people of the likes of Dana Majhi to the wall in crux times is in Odisha almost a whopping 80 per cent of ambulances are of 108 or 102 type — where they cater either to ferrying of patients in need of critical care, accident victims or pregnant mother, children and miscellaneous.
Sources indicate that a mere 1 - 2 per cent of the ambulances in public health system were in service to ferry corpses, and it’s an open secret how a premium amount is levied ‘unofficially’ in public hospitals in Odisha to render the said service.