AP zooms ahead; Telangana healthier than last year

Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh has emerged as the country’s second best state in terms of overall health performance, while Kerala is the topper.

Telangana state has performed moderately in dealing with its public health issues while AP has shown an incredible improvement.

From 11th in the rankings in 2015-16, Telangana state has crawled to 10th place, and AP has jumped from eighth to second position as the second healthiest state in the country. Kerala by retaining its spot has emerged as the top ranking state while Uttar Pradesh is the worst, says India’s think-tank Niti Aayog.

Niti Aayog released the second round of its health index report titled ‘Healthy States, Progressive India: Report on Rank of States and UTs’ on Tuesday.

The Health Index is a composite score incorporating 23 indicators covering key aspects of health sector performance. The changes in Health Index scores from 2015-16 to 2017-18 varied significantly across states and Union Territories, implying different levels of momentum to improve performance.

Among the larger states, Haryana, Rajasthan and Jharkhand are the top three in terms of incremental performance, while Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra are the top three states in terms of overall performance, said the report. “AP has shown exceptional performance, its average composite health index score increased from 53.22 to 65.13 and is the second healthiest state. The most significant progress in ranks has been observed in Andhra Pradesh followed by Rajasthan, improving their ranking by six and four positions respectively. Maharashtra has improved its ranking by three positions while Karnataka, Telangana state, Haryana and Assam improved their ranking by one position each,” the report said.

AP has improved because it has reported 100 per cent full immunisation coverage. Tuberculosis success rates declined in most states except Jharkhand, Telangana state, and Andhra Pradesh. While AP and Haryana had fully operationalised Human Resources Management Information System (HRMIS) for 100 per cent of staff, another 10 states, which includes Telangana, partially operationalised the HRMIS for 12 to 86 per cent of staff.

The Centre should spend 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product on health, according to the Niti Aayog. State governments should increase their spending on health from an average of 4.7 per cent to 8 per cent of their budget on health, said Aayog member Vinod Kumar Paul.

The Niti Aayog report found there was a decline in the overall health index score of five empowered action group states - Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha.

In worst-hit states like like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the deterioration was primarily due to the performance related to total fertility rate, low birth weight, sex ratio at birth, TB (tuberculosis) treatment success rate, quality accreditation of public health facilities, time taken for NHM (National Health Mission) fund transfer,.

The report said several states have made good progress towards achieving sustainable development goals included in the index.