Health Services in Sub-Plan Areas of Andhra Pradesh

Abstract

Though the concept of health is wealth is an adage, a war on ill-health and disease is essentially a war on poverty and all its evil brood. Disease and poverty go hand in hand. The main objective of the study is to understand the present condition of health facilities, infrastructure and extent of utilization of medical services in the tribal area. Primary and secondary data is collected via schedules such as institutional infrastructure, from curative centers and household schedules. The study sample is from the entire Integrated Tribal development (T.D) project areas spread over 7 districts of Andhra Pradesh. The areas are further divided into two economic regions, namely the eastern and western regions. Within this, tribal development blocks have been selected: one in a comparatively developed tribal area (Polavaram, West Godavari and Utnoor, Adilabad) and the other from relatively backward tribal areas (Munchingiput, Visakhapatnam and Varamchandrapuram, Khammam). Each block is again divided into 4 clusters. The study details about tribal sub-plan areas which are of 10.9% of the geographical area of A.P with 6.32% medical institutes. As per the terms, for every 665 sq Km, 1 PHC is to be present but there's only 1 PHC per 1,082 sq Km. This explains that the health institutions in tribal areas have to cover a larger area. Nevertheless, medical services should confine to the tribal area rather than plain areas. The survey delineated the number of beds and doctors on duty is relatively less. After IVth plan period, only 4 out of 25 T.D blocks had no primary heath centers thereby contradicting the minimum health needs. The survey on 4 T.D block reveals deficient of doctors in PHCs, no proper infrastructure, accommodation and transport. The survey among sample household discloses preference to immunization activities and special care to immunize children by the PHCs. Only 36.62% of the tribal population attended government institutions for treatment, while 24.19% of tribes were not fond of taking treatments but followed native or home remedies for curing the disease. Though statistically, 66.5% trusted in modern treatment, only 32.7% of them could be benefited The main cause for the back step is the fear of not getting well treated, financial burden and distance of medical institute away from their native. So the study suggests few implications and interventions such as relocating medical institutions to more concentrated tribal population, residential quarters and transport for doctors to educate and treat the natives, maintenance of proper records to track the services being utilized and finally awareness and knowledge about various diseases and modern medicine.