Ahmedabad: If hospital stays can make one nervous, the bills can get even more dreadful, particularly for people of Gujarat as the state ranks fifth nationally on the average cost of one hospitalization. In urban areas, one hospitalization costs an average Rs 51,742, higher than the national average of Rs 46,774, according to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) report ‘Household Social Consumption: Health’. The report, released recently, puts Jharkhand on top (Rs 59,455), followed by Uttar Pradesh (Rs 56,537), Maharashtra (Rs 55,697) and Assam (Rs 51,825).This expense in Gujarat’s rural areas was Rs 25,877 taking the overall (urban and rural) to Rs 38,607. The report states that for every hospitalization patients incur an average of Rs 25,347 in rural pockets and Rs 39,572 in urban areas — bringing the overall cost to Rs 32,348. This indicates that about 83% of the overall expenses have been borne by patients, while non-medical expenses hovered around an average of Rs 2,300 (rural and urban). The report covered data from over 30,300 respondents from over 6,000 households in Gujarat.Dr Viren Shah, vice president of the Ahmedabad Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association (AHNA), says that insurance coverage, especially by private companies, is quite low in the state. “The main coverage is in form of govt schemes such as PM-JAY and Mukhyamantri Amrutam Yojana. Patients in hopsitalized in private facilities will naturally incure more cost compared to govt facilities. By our estimates, out-of-pocket expenses would be higher in medium and smaller hospitals especially for non-planned procedures,” he says. According to the report, non-hospitalized medical expenditure including medical advice is Rs 852 in rural Gujarat and Rs 968 in urban areas. Of this, patients end up incurring Rs 851 and Rs 940 respectively on their own.Hospitilizations in Gujarat in the past 365 days were logged at 29 people out of every 1,000, similar to the national trend. Out of these, 30 out of 1,00 were men and 27 out of 1,000 were women. In urban Gujarat, hospitalizations were slightly higher at 32 compared to 26 in rural areas. An age analysis of patients hospitalized shows that about 75 out of 1,000 were aged above. The ratio hovered around 10-14 for the 5 to 29 years age group.
