Kerala 2005 - of Planning Commission

CHAPTER 2
ASSESSING DEVELOPMENT: SOME NON- INCOME DIMENSIONS
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Map 2.2: District-wise Distribution of Schools (2001)
Map 2.3: Distribution of Number of Beds in Hospitals (2001)
4.1 Health
Health development in Kerala, comparable to that of highincome
countries, has been the outcome of investment in
health infrastructure in public, private and co-operative
sectors, along with people’s health awareness and
connectivity. As per the 1991 Census, Kerala has the
highest number of hospitals in India. Kerala’s health care
network in the public sector, under the three medical
systems of allopathy, Ayurveda and homoeopathy,
had a total of 7,831 institutions in 2001-02, including
sub-centres. The institutions under the allopathy system were
1,310, with 46,800 beds – including 941 primary health
centres, 107 community health centres and 143 hospitals.
Each sub-centre in Kerala serves a population of about
5,000 as against 4,581 at the all-India level, and each
primary health centre, a population of more than
25,000 and each community health centre, about 2.25 lakh.
It should be noted that as in the case of school infrastructure,
each medical institution in Kerala serves a larger population
due to high density, but the area covered is much less than
for all-India, which in fact ensures greater accessibility.
Though the achievement in human development index
does not vary significantly among the districts (as we see in
Chapter 4), some of the input indicators such as number of
beds per 1,000 population and number of schools per lakh
school-going population varied among the districts in Kerala.
Map 2.2 gives the spatial variation of number of beds per
1,000 population. The number of beds per 1,000 population
is the lowest in the districts of Kasargod, Wayanad and
Malappuram. This is the highest in Thiruvananthapuram,
Alappuzha and Kozhikode districts. The estimated coefficient
of variation is around 38 per cent.