IIT Jodhpur study reveals cost of hospitalisation under public and private hospitals

NEW DELHI: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jodhpur researcher gives a comparative study with the primary objective of comparing the cost of hospitalisation by government and household between public and private sector hospitals in India.

The result of the research study shows that the government and households put together spend several times more per hospitalisation in private hospitals than public hospitals. The study was carried by IIT Jodhpur, school of liberal arts, assistant professor, Alok Ranjan along with State Health Resource Centre (SHRC) executive director Samir Garg, SHRC senior programme coordinator, Narayan Tripathi and SHRC programme associate, Kirtti Kumar Bebarta.

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The study showed an average total day spending on hospitalisation in India to be Rs 2,833 for public hospitals and Rs 6,788 in private hospitals. The results of this research were published in Health Economics Review Journal, an international peer reviewed journal. The survey was carried out with the support of the State Health Resource Centre, a technical agency working for the Department of Health, Government of Chhattisgarh, in 64 healthcare facilities across the state.

This IIT Jodhpur research study has important implications in achieving universal health care coverage in India. It is a one-of-its-kind study that did costing of public and private healthcare facilities for unit inpatient care in the country. The research's relevance becomes important in context of strategic purchasing from the private sector, which has been mentioned as one of the policy directions under National Health Policy-2017.