Rajasthan: Health professionals supply and demand

Abstract

: Till recently the government is planning for national level availability of doctors. However, to improve health care service delivery, robust regional planning for production and supply of health professionals is need of hour. The study aims to understand the demand and supply of trained doctors and tertiary care facilities in different regions of Rajasthan.: Data of undergraduate medical entrance were used to adjust against the voluntary attrition rate, superannuation rate, natural death rate and external additions to define the pool of available practicing doctors. The estimates were generated by forecasting the population and expected supply of doctors till the year 2035 by projecting the data by Average Exponential Growth Rate (AEGR).: The study suggests that in 2018 the density of doctors was 0.32 per thousand population in Rajasthan than that of 0.7 in India. At the current AEGR of 5.53 %, density of doctors will only improve to 0.73 in year 2035. There are 16 districts with 41.1 % of the population of Rajasthan have no medical school or any tertiary health care institution. Similarly, undergraduate enrollment varies in different regions from 1.5 to 13.5 students per 100000 population.: The challenge of availability of qualified doctors in Rajasthan will persist even in year 2035. There is an urgent need to ensure regionally balanced production and supply of skilled doctors.