Non-communicable lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and hypertension are no longer diseases of the affluent. A majority of the urban poor are diabetic, and what’s worse is they are forced to seek healthcare in private hospitals thanks to inadequate facilities in the government-run healthcare centres.
A study conducted in Kadugondanahalli (K.G. Halli) by Mrunalini J. Gowda, Upendra Bhojani, N. Devadasan and Thriveni S.B. from the city-based Institute of Public Health (IPH) corroborates this.
The researchers, who had taken up a similar study in KG Halli in 2009, took up a follow-up study using data of the same population after three years and found that the prevalence of chronic non-communicable conditions among the same population had increased by 3.8 percentage points.
With lack of adequate services in the only two healthcare centres in the area, a majority of patients (89.3 per cent of the nearly 6,000 individuals surveyed) sought healthcare in private facilities indicating a decrease by 8.7 per cent in use of government health facilities.
Giving details of the study that has been published on August 15 in BMC Health Services Research, an international medical journal, Dr. Mrunalini told The Hindu that the overall self-reported prevalence of chronic conditions was 12 per cent. Of this, the prevalence of hypertension was 7 per cent and diabetes 5.8 per cent.
“Older people, women and people living below the poverty line had greater odds of having chronic conditions across the two studies. There is a need to strengthen government health services,” she said.
That apart, the baseline survey revealed that 3 per cent of the patients with self-reported chronic conditions were not on treatment. In the follow-up survey, the treatment gap increased by 0.3 per cent, she explained.
