Willingness To Pay For Reproductive Healthcare Services: A Case Study Of Patna

Abstract

The present study focused on the importance of reproductive healthcare and aims to find out the willingness to pay for reproductive healthcare services in Patna. There are various sources of health care financing in India namely government budgetary allocations, loans and grants obtained from multilateral and bilateral agencies, private sector contributions and the out of pocket payment. Among all the sources, the worrisome picture is the heavy out of pocket expenditure on health which adversely affects access to health care as it is catastrophic to poor households and further impoverishes them. Thus the study aims at converting this out of pocket expenditure on reproductive health into reproductive health insurance programme on the basis of willingness to pay by applying contingent valuation method. Study also aims to identify the determinants which influence the willingness to pay for reproductive healthcare services in Patna. Primary survey was conducted in all government and private hospitals in the year 2011. Questionnaire was conducted from 528 respondents out of which 391 respondents revealed their Willingness to Pay. Response validity is tested by relating WTP response to respondent’s socio-economic and demographic characteristics. The final result shows that age of the respondent and joint-family type are negatively related while household monthly income, chance of caesarean delivery, complications in earlier delivery, RHCS offered by the hospitals, private- hospital type are significant and are positively related to WTP for reproductive healthcare services in the present study.