Can Better Infrastructure Ensure Better Healthcare?The Dialectic of Assam’s Health Sector Scenario

Health is considered as a basic asset because ill health disables us from fulfilling our responsibilities both on social and personal grounds. The objective of the paper is to access the status of health infrastructure, health facilities and expenditure pattern on health sector in the state of Assam. It tries to answer the question if the increase in the number of health care facilities is enough to ensure good health and well being of the people. The objective is fulfilled through the analysis of the secondary data collected from Statistical Hand Book of Assam on various Medical and Public Health is compared and analysed for the period mostly through tabular method. It was seen that the percentage share of Revenue Expenditure of the Government of Assam on Medical and Family Health to Revenue Expenditure of the State Govt has increased from 7.58% in 2011-12 to almost twice to 14.75% in 2017-18. Similarly the health care facilities, in terms of the number of medical institutions, medical staff and number of beds in different institutions have increased. There was a nominal decline in the birth rate as well as the death rate can be due improvement and availability of better health care facilities to the people. It was also seen that there was a decline in the fertility rates in the state of Assam. However, health is not just the physical wellbeing of an individual but also the social, emotional and cultural wellbeing of the whole community. So it’s not just the health care services and expenditure on health care services that leads to good health and well-being, but also other factors like general socio-economic, cultural and environmental conditions that highly influences good health and well being of the people in a country or a nation.