Karnataka - A Rapid Private Health Sector Assessment
This paper presents a rapid private health sector assessment for Karnataka. Karnataka is a middle-tier Indian state with most state-wide health indicators mirroring those for the nation as a whole. In addition to these health statistics, more than...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Policy Note |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC: World Bank
2022
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/586051468041479513/Karnataka-A-rapid-private-health-sector-assessment http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37166 |
| Summary: | This paper presents a rapid
private health sector assessment for Karnataka.
Karnataka is a middle-tier Indian state with most state-wide
health indicators mirroring those for the nation as a whole.
In addition to these health statistics, more than half of
Karnataka's children suffer from malnutrition.
Improving primary health care services is a key to improving
these health indicators. Improving health outcomes will
depend on improving the quality, outreach and responsiveness
of primary health care providers. Government can consider
scaling up the successful experiences of community health
care financing. More specifically the findings of this study
and the discussion that it engenders will be used to inform
the design of the proposed Karnataka Health Nutrition and
Population (HNP) project. Karnataka currently has 1,685
Primary Health Center's (PHCs) and 583 Primary Health
Units (PHUs). The PHC is intended to serve a population of
30,000 with smaller populations in the more remote rural or
hilly areas and larger populations covered in urban areas.
It is reported that the PHCs are not currently able to
fulfill all these functions, many of which have a strong
public good component. As such, the private sector can still
play a role in delivering these services, although they will
have to be funded by the public sector. Some services will
have a mixture of public and private good characteristics,
while others will be purely private goods. It is the latter
group of services that are most amenable to
privately-funded, privately provided health care. In
general, the public health care system is managed and
overseen by the district health officers. Although they are
qualified doctors, they have little or no training in public
health management and are transferred frequently. Moreover,
even if they had the training they do not have the
flexibility to reallocate financial, capital and human
resources to achieve better outcomes. |
|---|