7. An Analysis of Geographical Survey for Utilization of Health Care Facilities

Utilization of health services is a complex phenomenon which, on the hand, is influenced by the awareness by an individual of the need for services thereby endorsing him to take a choice to use them and, on the other hand, by the availability, accessibility and organizational characteristics of health care services itself. The main objective of this chapter is to estimate the utilization pattern of health care services in the Varanasi district of India. Primary data pertaining to the utilization of health care facilities are collected from 800 respondents of 16 selected villages of rural Varanasi and analyzed with the SPSS statistical software. Varanasi City proper was not considered for this purpose because the presence and functioning of many private and government hospitals here meant that people were able to avail themselves of a fairly good range of healthcare facilities in comparison to people residing in the rural areas. Results of the findings revealed a high level of awareness among the local public of both the existence of the health care centres (78 %) and the type of health services they provided (75 % for vaccination; 70 % mother-child health (MCH) services; 62 % family planning; and 52 % general treatment). Despite such high levels of awareness only 25 % of them are satisfied with all the health care services provided by the primary health centres (PHC), 60 % are only partially satisfied and the remaining 14 % were not satisfied at all. These findings thus underline the geographical disparities in health facilities between urban and rural area of Varanasi.