post news network
New Delhi, June 20: The state government spends merely 1.19 per cent of its Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) on healthcare, the National Health Profile for 2018 released Tuesday claimed.
The report based on data from the National Health Accounts Cell of the Union health ministry claims while most of the northeastern states and J&K spend over 2 per cent of their GSDP on health and Andaman spends 5.23 per cent on healthcare, the state spends only 1.19 per cent. The data was related to expenditure in 2015-16.
The report says that in the time period, the state spent `3,921 crore on healthcare out of a total expenditure of `81,741 crore that worked out to 4.80 per cent.
However, as the GSDP in 2015-16 at current prices stood at `3,30,874 crore, the total expenditure on healthcare worked out to a meager 1.19 per cent. The per capita health expenditure at the time period stood at `927 for Odisha.
As per the report there is a government allopathic doctor for every 12,744 people in the state while there is a government dental surgeon for every 2,61,024 citizens in the state.
Odisha as of December, 2017 had 21,681 qualified doctors with authentic degrees while the number of dental surgeons was 1,907. The data pertaining to January 1, 2017 figure says Odisha was home to 14,516 AYUSH doctors who practiced in alternative medicines.
The report said in 2016, the state outperformed in the eye donation target. It was given a target of 700 eye donations for the time period while it collected almost double the target at 1346 eye donations.
The report also said that in 2015-16, out of 20 districts surveyed 18 were found to have endemic patients for goitre as they reported more than 5 per cent of total goitre rate.
The report also speaks about the spate of life-style diseases in Odisha which affected lakhs of persons in the state. It said in 2017, 1.2 Lakh persons were screened for diabetes. Similarly, it screened 1.4 Lakh hypertension patients, 228 patients of cardio vascular diseases ad 1019 stroke patients.