Page 177 - ES 2020-21_Volume-1-2 [28-01-21]

160 Economic Survey 2020-21 Volume 1

Source: National Health Systems Resource Centre 2017

5.21 The states that have higher per capita spending have lower out-of-pocket expenditure, which
also holds true at global level. Hence, there is need for higher public spending on healthcare to
reduce OOP. As the evidence in Figure 3 clearly demonstrates, an increase in public spending to
2.5-3 per cent can substantially reduce OOP from the current level of 60 per cent to 30 per cent.
Therefore, the richer states should especially target increasing the healthcare spending as a per
cent of GDP to 2.5-3 per cent (Figure 12).

Figure 12: Correlation between state health spending and inpatient OOPe

Source: Survey computations based on NSSO data

low human resources for health

5.22 Health status of any country crucially depends on the available health infrastructure in
general and human resources for health. Several research studies, using cross-country data,
have highlighted a positive causal link between the availability of the health workforce in a
healthcare system and health outcomes (Jadhav et al, 2019, Choudhury and Mohanty 2020,
Anand and Bärnighausen 2004). World Health Organization (WHO) identified an aggregate
density of health workers to be 44.5 per 10,000 population and an adequate skill-mix of health
workers to achieve composite SDG tracer indicators index by 2030 (WHO 2019). The WHO