The National Health Accounts Estimates for India for 2017-18 were released by Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Monday.
According to the findings of India’s National Health Account (NHA) estimates for 2017-18 released by the health secretary on Monday, both total health expenditure and out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) as part of foreign aid for health has decreased. Rajesh Bhushan.
As a share of total health expenditure, OOPE declined to 48.8% in 2017-18 from 64.2% in 2013-14. In case of per capita OOPE also, there has been a decline from ₹ 2,336 to ₹ 2,097 between 2013-14 to 2017-18.
“One of the factors responsible for this decline is increase in utilization and reduction in cost of services in government health facilities. If we compare NHA 2014-15 and 2017-18, OOPE for government hospitals declined by 50% It is,” said Mr. Bhushan.
This is the fifth consecutive NHA report prepared by the National Health Systems Resource Centre, which has been designated as the National Health Accounts Technical Secretariat in 2014 by the Ministry of Health. NHA estimates are prepared using an accounting framework based on the internationally accepted System of Health Accounts 2011 provided by the World Health Organization.
Releasing the report, Mr Bhushan said that the NHA’s estimates for 2017-18 clearly show that the share of government health expenditure in the country’s total GDP has increased.
“It has increased from 1.15% in 2013-14 to 1.35% in 2017-18. In addition, the share of government health expenditure in total health expenditure has also increased over time. The share of government expenditure in 2017-18 was 40.8 per cent, which is much higher than 28.6 per cent in 2013-14.
The report further states that in per capita terms, government health expenditure has increased from ₹1,042 to ₹1,753 between 2013-14 and 2017-18.
The share of primary healthcare in the current government health expenditure has increased from 51.1% in 2013-14 to 54.7% in 2017-18.
“Primary and secondary care account for more than 80% of current government health expenditure. The share of primary and secondary care has increased in terms of government health expenditure. In the case of the private sector, the share of tertiary care has increased but shows a declining trend in primary and secondary care. The share of primary and secondary care in the government sector has increased from 75% to 86% between 2016-17 and 2017-18. In the private sector, the share of primary and secondary care has declined from 84% to 74%,” the report said.
Also the share of social security expenditure on health, which includes social health insurance programmes, government-funded health insurance schemes and medical reimbursement to government employees, has increased.
As a percentage of total health expenditure, the increase has been around nine per cent in 2017-18 from six per cent in 2013-14. “The findings also show that foreign aid for health has come down to 0.5%, demonstrating India’s economic self-reliance,” Mr. Bhushan said.
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