WHO report titled ‘The Health Workforce in India’

The report of a study titled ‘The Health Workforce in India’ was recently released. The study was conducted by the WHO. The data for each district in the country from the 2001 census were specially extracted for this study, which provided a comprehensive picture of health workers in each district.

Highlights:

• Almost one-third (31%) of those who claimed to be allopathic doctors in 2001 were educated only up to the secondary school level and 57% did not have any medical qualification.
• The situation was far worse in rural India, where just 8% of allopathic doctors had a medical qualification.
• Female healthcare workers – 38% of the total – were found to be more educated and medically qualified than their male counterparts.
• Ignoring those who don’t have a medical qualification, there are 36 doctors per lakh population in India. As for nurses and midwives, India had 61 workers per lakh population compared to 96 in China. The number reduced tenfold to 6 per lakh population, if only those with a medical qualification were considered.
• There is substantial variation in the density of health workers across States and districts. For instance, Kerala had 38.4% of the country’s medically qualified nurses but constituted only 3.1% of the total population. Similarly, West Bengal had 30.6% of all homoeopathic doctors in the country but only 7.8% of the population. Better-off States seemed to afford more doctors plus nurses per capita.
• District-wise, the inequalities were massive. The density of allopathic doctors with any level of education in the lowest 30 districts — half of which were in north-eastern States and the other in central States — was a little over 4 per lakh of the population whereas, in the highest 30 districts, it was 159 per lakh of population.

In the case of dentists, the situation was even worse. The national density of dentists was extremely low at 2.4 per lakh population, with 58 (of the total 593) districts having no dentists at all in 2001. In fact, 175 districts (30%) had no dentists with a medical qualification.