The city is drastically falling short on the number of civic-run dispensaries, with merely one dispensary for 64,468 people. A report released by non-profit Praja Foundation has revealed that 76% people visited outpatient departments (OPD) of government hospitals, while merely 24% sought treatment at the dispensaries. The inadequate number of dispensaries and lack of facilities in them are major reasons for overcrowding in hospitals, say experts.
“It is clear that the dispensaries are not a priority for the corporation,” said Milind Mhaske, director of Praja Foundation. He said, “The dispensaries need to be upgraded in terms of numbers, equipment, timing, staff and budget.”
As per the norms set by the National Urban Health Mission, there has to be one public dispensary for 15,000 people. However, Praja’s report has revealed worrisome findings. In Mumbai, there is one dispensary for 40,598 people. In the western and eastern suburbs, there is one dispensary for 86,360 and 72,263 people respectively. In some wards like Andheri (West), Goregaon, Dahisar and Mulund, there is one dispensary for more than one lakh people per ward.
In 2017-2018, only 26% of the corporation’s health budget was spent on dispensaries, while 73% was spent on secondary care like public hospitals.
According to the report, diabetes and tuberculosis were the major killers in 2017. While 26 people were killed every day due to diabetes-related complications in 2017, tuberculosis killed 15 people every day in the same year. The number of diabetes-related deaths jumped drastically to 9,525 in 2017 from 2,428 in 2014. Around 9% of the total deaths in the city were due to acute myocardial infarction (heart attack). Dr. Mangesh Pednekar, director of Healis-Sekhsaria Institute for Public Health, said 80,000 to 90,000 deaths are reported in Mumbai every year. The report stated around 15,464 cases were reported positive for dengue in 2018.
The annual expenditure on health per household has been increasing over the years. In two years, from 2015-16 to 2017-18, a 45% increase has been recorded. An average person in Mumbai spends 9.7% of his income on health complications annually, which is ₹98,214 per household. Thus, an estimated ₹27,795 crore is spent on health issues. However, despite the high expenditure, only 27% of people have health insurance and a majority of them from a private company.
Jennifer Spencer, project coordinator at Praja Foundation, said, “After the Civil Registration System (CRS) has been started, we are not able to get area-wise data about deaths. The corporation is facing difficulty in tracking the cause of death due to lack of access to the CRS.”
