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Context: Despite policies to make health care accessible to all, it is not universally accessible. Frequent evaluation of barriers to accessibility of health care services paves path for improvement. Hence, present study is undertaken to evaluate the factors and public health policies influencing health care access to rural people in Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh, which can be interpolated for other regions. Aims: To assess knowledge, perceptions, availing of public health care services, barriers to health care access in Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh. Settings and Design: Cross-sectional, hospital-based survey in the Government Maternity Hospital (GMH), Tirupati, a tertiary care center. Materials and Methods: Fifty women delivered normally in GMH through convenient sampling technique. Data collected on standardized pro forma as per IMS Institute of Healthcare Informatics. Statistical Analysis Used: Is done through MS Excel 2007, Epi Info 7 (of Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, USA) and frequencies were described. Results: Distance, waiting hours, societal responsibility, nature of the illness, presumed commercialization of Medicare system, attitudes of health care providers, and loss of wages were not barriers for accessing health care. Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) and availability of ambulance services made great improvements in health care accessibility. Absenteeism of health care providers is a problem. Conclusions: Expanding the ambulance services and ASHA network will be an effective measure for further accessibility to health care. Absenteeism of health care providers needs correction. |
