Financial Burden and financing strategies for treating the cardiovascular diseases in India

Abstract

Health expenditures are a major financial burden for many people in low and middle-income countries. Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) caused almost a third of the total deaths globally in 2016. The financial burden of CVD s globally was around US$ 863 billion in 2010 and is estimated to rise by 22% (which means around US$ 1044 billion) by 2030. Hence, there is an urgent need to know the burden of CVDs and the financing strategies for CVDs in India. The data for this study was obtained from the 75th round of the National Sample Survey (NSS) on the theme ‘Social consumption: Health’ (2017–18). The present study uses data of 6144 people who sought the treatments from hospitalization care in the last 365 days and 8401 people who sought the treatments from Outpatients (OPD) care in the last 15 days preceding the survey. Almost, 50.3 percent and 43.2 percent of the households faced catastrophic health expenditure due to hospitalization care and OPD care respectively and 19.0 percent and 8.9 percent of the households were forced to below poverty line from above poverty line due to hospitalization care and OPD care respectively due to CVD treatment. Based on our analysis certain important conclusions and recommendations can be proposed. These include increasing the screening for CVDs for timely diagnosis and treatment, improving the healthcare services for the management of CVDs in the public sector, improving awareness amongst the masses for identifying the early signs of CVDs and a multi-stakeholder approach consisting of improvement in areas particularly healthcare, literacy, employment, and women upliftment to limit and manage the burden of CVDs in India.

Keywords

• Financial risk protection
• Impoverishment
• Poverty headcount ratio
• Poverty gap ratio and morbidity