More people sick in urban areas than rural areas: NSSO Survey

The number of people reporting sick is more in urban India compared to rural areas, whereas the un-treated spell is more in rural India, a NSSO survey said today.
"A Health Survey conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) has indicated that during a 15 day reference period 89 per 1,000 persons reported illness in rural India against 118 persons-Proportion (per 1,000) of Ailing Persons (PAP) in urban areas," an official statement.
However, the un-treated spell was higher in rural (both for male and female) than urban areas. Private doctors were the most important single source of treatment in both the areas, it added.

"More than 70 per cent (72 per cent in rural areas and 79 per cent in the urban areas) spells of ailment were treated in the private sector. Inclination towards allopathic treatment was prevalent (around 90 per cent in both the sectors)," the statement said.
NSSO under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has released key indicators of the' Social Consumption in India: Health', generated from data collected during the period January to June 2014 in its 71st round survey.
The survey on Social Consumption: Health conducted during the period January to June 2014 aimed at generating basic quantitative information on the health sector.

The key indicators are based on Central sample consisting of 4,577 villages in rural areas and 3,720 urban blocks spread over all States and Union Territories of India.

The information was collected through a schedule (25.0) from a set of sample households during the period January to June 2014. The total number of households in which Schedule was canvassed, was 36,480 in rural India and 29,452 in urban India.
Medical treatment of an ailing person as an in-patient in any medical institution having provision for treating the sick as in-patients, was considered as hospitalised treatment.
In the urban population, 4.4 per cent of the persons were hospitalised at some time during a reference period of 365 days. The proportion of persons hospitalised in rural areas was lower (3.5 per cent).

It is observed that in rural India, 42 per cent hospitalised treatment was carried out in public hospital and rest 58 per cent in private hospital. For the urban India, the corresponding figures were 32 per cent and 68 per cent.
Higher amount was spent for treatment per hospitalised case by people in the private hospitals (Rs 25,850) than in the public hospitals (Rs 6,120). The highest expenditure was recorded for treatment of Cancer (Rs 56,712) followed by that for Cardio-vascular diseases (Rs 31,647).