Cost of Health Care in the Public Hospitals in Maharashtra: 1999-2000

The present study is the outcome of a team research undertaken at the Population Research Centre of the Gokhale institute of Politics and Economics. The study tries to calculate the cost of providing hospital services on a per capita basis spread over seven districts of Maharashtra in the year 1999-2000. Average cost is calculated separately for each of the components like fixed and variable cost. An inter-districts comparison is also attempted to show the spatial difference in cost associated with hospital services. Lastly it argues the case of increasing efficiency in two ways: (i) by increasing the entitlements to health care and (ii) by lowering the costs.