India, though on a path of development, couldn’t do much to control the out of pocket expenditure for poor pregnant women giving birth to the newborn babies. Although government schemes like Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram (JSSK) has been implemented in 2011, under which pregnant women were allowed to give birth freely in Government hospitals all over India, Niti Aayog’s Healthy States Progressive India Report points out that each state has its own out of pocket expenditure for delivery.
According to Dinesh Arora, Health Director, Niti Aayog says that this current situation of delivery cost in each state is mainly due to region-specific reasons and that the things have significantly improved over the last two years. Manipur is currently the costliest state in India with an out of pocket expenditure of Rs 10,076 needed to deliver a baby in a Government hospital. Number second on the list is Delhi with Rs 8,719 needed for one delivery. The out of pocket expenditure for a few other places are given below.
West Bengal: Rs 7,782
Kerala: Rs 6,901
Arunachal Pradesh: Rs 6,474
Karnataka: Rs 3,893
Maharashtra: Rs 3,487
Madhya Pradesh: Rs 1,387
Jharkhand: Rs 1,476
Chhattisgarh: Rs 1,480
Haryana: Rs 1,503
Uttar Pradesh: Rs 1,959
Bihar: Rs 1,724
Dadra and Nagar Haveli: Rs 471
Dinesh Arora specifically mentioned that this out of expenditure analysis of all these places was created based on the data collected from National Family Health Survey-4 released in 2015-16. Considering the fact that the Government is spending a huge amount of money regularly for the cause of maternal and child care in India and the number of National Health Missions (NHM) that targeted pregnant woman like Janani Suraksha Yojana, Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakaram and Referral Transport to ensure free delivery, the states have been asked to improve their conditions soon and reduce the out of pocket expenditure.
Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram was first launched in the year 2011 to ease the difficulties faced by pregnant women and sick newborns. Under this program, pregnant women and sick newborns were allowed to have free delivery, C-section, drugs, consumables, diagnostics, diet during stay time and free transport from home to health organization. On the other hand, Janani Shishu Yojana was started in 2005 and provided financial assistance of Rs 500 per birth up to two live births to women who are above or of 19 years of age and also belong to the BPL category.
The North Eastern states have the high delivery cost because of the difficult terrain and unavailability of trained staff. However, the fact those richer states like Delhi, Karnataka and Maharashtra have such high delivery costs have left many shocked. According to Health Welfare Society Director-General Dr Archana Srivastava, the higher costs in rich states is because people there prefer private wards and hence contributes to the hike in delivery cost.