What is More Important – Infrastructure or Human Resources?
It has been observed that states with more doctors have better healthcare indices than those with better infrastructure. When the states with more than 2 Million rural population have been ranked on infrastructure (rural population covered per PHC), and Doctor Patient Ratio (DPR), DPR was observed to have a far greater correlation with the IMR ranking than infrastructure – Pointing to the impact of Human Resources over Infrastructure.
The top 4 states on IMR also rank among the top 5 on Doctor Patient Ratio and none of these states are among the top 5 in terms of infrastructure.
While the top five states have an average IMR of 24, the average IMR of the top five ranking infrastructure states is 46 with UP and MP having the highest IMR in the country
The average shortfall of doctors in PHCs nationally, between 2007 and 2011, was 12% .
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