Health Care Infrastructure and Need in India: A Critical Assessment

Health is a critical contributor to the success of social policies that enable the attainment of national goals of social and economic development. Addressing health policy issues that shape the health system possess problems because social needs are multidimensional, resources are finite, adverse effects are cumulative. Consequently, to enhance the role of the health system as core social institution and create wide ranging opportunities in the design and delivery of health service, the need for health care must be weighed against the existing resources before they become meaningful argument in the funding debate. The present study is an attempt to assess the stock of health care infrastructure and health care needs in India based on state level secondary data. The supply condition of health care sector is reflected in the available health manpower and infrastructure referred to as the health stock and the demand for health care arises from health and disease pattern of the population. With an objective to suggest policies to meet the gap between health need and stock of health infrastructure the states are ranked according to the gap. Principal Component Analysis is used to identify the major health care needs and stock in different states in India. The analysis finds four major effectively functioning stock and five major health needs most prevalent across the States and eventually identifies multi-purpose worker as stock principal component and malaria as the need principal component. A Health Care Appraisal Model is formulated to assess the ability of health stock to meet the health needs for each State. At the end, a coverage index for each State has been constructed on the basis of principal components of stock and need which provides an idea of relative health access condition in the States of India.