HEALTH INEQUALITIES

 The National Family Health Survey 2019-20 (NFHS-5) is the fifth in the series and contains data on India's population, health, and nutrition for each state and union territory (UT). NFHS-5, like NFHS-4, gives district-level estimates for a variety of significant variables. Preschool education, handicap, access to a toilet facility, death registration, bathing practises during menstruation, and techniques and reasons for abortion are some of the new topics in NFHS-5. Each round of the NFHS has had as its main goal the provision of high-quality data on health and family welfare, as well as emerging challenges in this field.

For more precise study , instead of choosing the health inequalities at the India level, I have chosen the NFHS-5 sheet of the state of Gujarat. Having born and brought up in Gujarat, studying its data seemed to allure me more than any other state or union territory for that matter.

 Under the head of population and household profile one major point of difference can be seen in the overall sex ratio where the rural sex ratio is 991 but the urban sex ratio lags behind at 929. Availability of clean fuel is a point of dis contention in  the state as only 46.1% of the rural households have availability to clean fuels as compared to their urban counterparts with 94.3% of the households having clean fuel.

The Infant and child mortality rates have shown improvement as compared to NFHS - 4 but still they are high specially in the rural areas showcasing the problem of lack of proper healthcare facilities and hospitals. The Infant Mortality Rate being 35.5 and the Under Five Mortality Rate being 44.2 are an evidence of the fact.

Under the head of maternal and child health, we can see that the average expenditure incurred by government per birth at a public health care unit is just rs. 1697 for the entire state which is less as compared to NFHS - 4 with the average expenditure being 2,136 which means that people prefer private hospitals and this might be accounted to the dilapidated condition of the public health care units in the state. Further out of the children born at home only 7.7% of them are taken to hospitals within the first 24 hours in the rural areas, this is not ideal as infants require special attention when they are just born.

Out of the total institutional registered births in the state only 47.3% of the births in rural and 36.6% births in the urban areas are done at a public facility, adding to this out of the total births at home only 1.6% births in the entire state are done by skilled personnel  which is even less than the previous survey.

The state developed and showed sign of progress in the arena of child vaccinations which is a great indicator of the state of infant healthcare in the state, also depicts that the government is well equipped with all the necessary vaccines and the execution of vaccination drives is fairly on the correct path.

The state of menstrual hygiene in the state is concerning as only 58.6% females in the rural and 77.6% females in the urban areas have access to proper menstrual hygiene methods, despite the awareness created regarding importance of menstrual hygiene the results are disappointing.

The screening of cancer amongst the adults is very low as not even 1% of the population goes through the process. To worsen all these matters the consumption of tobacco is high in the state. 

                                                                         Source : Google Images

The state's public health situation is not encouraging; the state has some severe issues to address in terms of child health care, pregnant women, and even adults. The disparity in certain ratios between urban and rural areas reflects the state's poor healthcare infrastructure as well as the inefficiency of the state's doctors and public healthcare units.