Progress Towards Universal Health Coverage In India

Abstract

Universal Health Coverage (UHC) has emerged as an important target under the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) on health. UHC has been defined as everyone who is in need of health care being able to get newlineappropriate and quality healthcare services, without any financial hardship. There could be various roads newlinefor achieving UHC in different countries based on their history of health systems development and resource newlineavailability. Access and financial protection are two core dimensions of UHC, but this may vary for each newlinetype of service- and this range of services included is the third dimension of UHC. newlineStudy was conducted in Korba district of Chhattisgarh, a district which has all elements of India s proposed newlineroadmap towards UHC are in place: a universal publicly funded insurance coverage based on the RSBY newlinedesign, most of its private hospitals empanelled, a private sector regulatory regime in place, a network of newlinepublic health facilities with reasonable density and an ongoing up gradation of sub-centers to provide more newlinecomprehensive care. . A multi-stage random sampling of 598 Households (population: 3153, rural: 2012, newlineurban: 1142, male: 1549, female: 1604) from 13 villages and seven urban wards, was undertaken to newlineunderstand community s healthcare need. A facility survey of 20 health facilities (8 HSC, 6 PHC, 2UPHC, newline3 CHC and DH) was done to understand the institutional capacity to ensure the availability of services. newlineQualitative semi-structured interviews were done of 102 patients and 27 providers to understand barriers to newlineaccess and health-seeking behaviour of the community. For triangulation, analysis of NSS 71 st Round data newlinefor the state of Chhattisgarh was used. newlineThe study reveals that there was a significant disease burden (both acute and chronic) in the community, newlinewhich was higher than what was reported in the NSS 71 st Round survey. It was higher in the lower-socio- newlineeconomic category of the population. In terms of access to effective care for perceived illness, 59.52 % of newlinethos