Govt health expenditure share in GDP increases from 1.15% to 1.35%

There has been an increase in the share of government health expenditure in the total GDP of the country, according to the National Health Account Estimate report. It has increased from 1.15 per cent in 2013-14 to 1.35 per cent in 2017-18.

The share of Government Health Expenditure in total health expenditure has also increased overtime. In 2017-18, the share of government expenditure was 40.8 per cent, a significant rise from 28.6 per cent in 2013-14. The NHAE report findings also show that the government's health expenditure as a share of total expenditure has increased from 3.78 per cent to 5.12 per cent between 2013-14 and 2017-18.

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan released findings of the National Health Accounts (NHA) Estimates for India for 2017-18, here on Monday. As per the report, the government health expenditure in the term of per capita has increased from Rs 1,042 to Rs 1,753 between 2013-14 to 2017-18. The share of primary healthcare in current government health expenditure has increased from 51.1 per cent in 2013-14 to 54.7 per cent in 2017-18.

Primary and secondary care accounts for more than 80 per cent of the current government health expenditure. There has been an increase in the share of primary and secondary care in case of government health expenditure. In private sector, the share of tertiary care has increased, but the primary and secondary care show a declining trend. Between 2016-17 and 2017-18 in government the share of primary and secondary care has increased from 75 per cent to 86 per cent. In the private sector, the share of primary and secondary care has declined from 84 per to 74 per cent.

The out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) as a share of total health expenditure has come down to 48.8 per cent in 2017-18 from 64.2 per cent in 2013-14 as per the report. Even in the case of per capita OOPE there has been a decline from Rs 2,336 to Rs 2,097 between 2013-14 to 2017-18. The findings also depict that the foreign aid for health has come down to 0.5 per cent, showcasing India's economic self-reliance.

This is the fifth consecutive NHA report produced by the National Health Systems Resource Center. The NHA estimates are prepared by using an accounting framework based on internationally accepted System of Health Accounts 2011, provided by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

With the present estimate of NHA 2017-18, India has had a continuous Time Series on NHA estimates for both the government and private sources for five years since 2013-14. These estimates are supposed to enable the policy makers to monitor progress towards the universal health coverage as envisaged in the National Health Policy, 2017.

--IANS

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