PANAJI
The two district hospitals in the State have performed well and Goa was ranked high among States and Union Territories in a number of indicators, according to a report by the NITI Aayog on ‘Best Practices on the Performance of District Hospitals’ released on Thursday.
The NITI Aayog’s report is an outcome of collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and WHO India.
The National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers, a constituent board of the Quality Council of India, conducted the on-ground data validation.
The report revealed that while Goa has an average of 32 beds in a district hospital for every 1 lakh population and was ranked 16th in list of states and UTs, Goa also had both district hospitals fulfilling Indian Public Health System (IPHS) norms for positioned doctors and positioned staff nurses.
Goa was ranked third best in the average ratio of doctors across hospitals in position to the IPHS norms and also ranked third best in the average ratio of nurses across hospitals in position to the IPHS norms.
Moreover, Goa was ranked 6th best in the average ratio of paramedical staff across hospitals in position to the IPHS norm and ranked 5th best in average number of support services in a district hospital by State/UT.
The North Goa District Hospital was also rated among the top performing district hospitals in the country (mid-sized hospital category) that has all the identified support services.
Besides, Goa was also ranked 2nd best in average number of available core health care services in a district hospitals and 3rd best in average number of available diagnostic testing services in a district hospital.
Other findings revealed that Goa has a low average bed occupancy rate among district hospitals.
In addition, Goa had an average number of 215 surgeries per surgeon performed in a year in a district hospital and an average number of 14 OPD patients per doctor in a day in a district hospital.
The assessment framework covered 10 Key Performance Indicators across the domains of Structure and Output. A total of 707 district hospitals across all States and Union Territories participated in the performance assessment.
Goa emerged as among the top performers on indicators ranging from availability of beds, medical and paramedical staff, core health and diagnostic testing services to outputs such as bed occupancy rate and number of surgeries per surgeon.
The report was launched in the presence of NITI Aayog Member Dr V K Paul, CEO Amitabh Kant, Additional Secretary Dr Rakesh Sarwal, MoH&FW Additional Secretary Arti Ahuja, WHO Representative to India Dr Roderico Ofrin, QCI Chairman Adil Zainulbhai.
“This report is the first-ever performance assessment of district hospitals undertaken across the country. It marks a major shift in the healthcare delivery system towards data-driven governance and takes us even closer to communities and people availing health services. The entire objective of the exercise is to pave the way for a more informed understanding of healthcare services available in different regions,” CEO Amitabh Kant said.
