Utilization of Healthcare Facilities among Rural Communities in Allahabad District, U. P. India

Abstract

Utilisation of healthcare services refers to the availability, accessibility and affordability of the household to avail services pertaining to health, particularly the poor household. It is well known that people in rural India are more vulnerable to death by diseases because they are not utilizing the health care facilities. The reasons of not utilizing the healthcare facilities are unawareness, illiteracy, lack of facility available in their village. With this regard, present study focuses on the utilization of healthcare service available in rural area of Allahabad district. A Cross sectional study is conducted during the year 2014-15. A sample size of 800 is taken considering prevalence of utilization of healthcare services in the study area. Purposive random sampling is employed to select the respondents and appropriate statistical tests are used where required. Out of the total respondents, 160 respondents (20.0%) visited private hospitals whereas, 80 per cent respondents visited government healthcare centres for medical treatment. The highest number (314) of respondent's uses healthcare services available at CHC/PHC. Thus use of healthcare services of government district hospitals stood third as only 17 per cent respondents have used this services. In the study area use of government health services is preferred more compared to services provided by private hospitals because private hospitals are costlier which can be not affordable to the poor people.