The Role of Government in Health and Medicare Facilities Distribution; in Hamedan Province

Health and Medicare issue plays a vital role in socio-economic life of the people in any society. That is why most of the economic planners expect much more from public health sector, including creating jobs, revenues and healthy social opportunities in addition to basic health necessities. The main objective of the present study is to measure the level of development of different Provinces with respect to their accessibility to the health and Medicare facilities, considering the special case of Hamedan province of Iran in order to evaluate Government performance during the planning years 1999-2004 on the same subject. For analysis of data, researcher has used quantified methods such as Numerical Taxonomy, Coefficient of Deprivation, Standardized Method and factor analysis to classify the provinces in Iran according to health care indicators and related facilities. Relevant data (18 health and Medicare indexes) have been collected from yearly statistics published by Central Bureau of Statistics, Management and Programming Organization and Health Network Offices of Iran. The selection of indexes was done on the basis of past related studies and human development indices. Results show that, the first five reduced factors i.e. Specialists, Urban Health Centers, Rural Health Centers, Urban waste water Drainage Units and Sub Rural Health, could describe nearly about 76 percent of variances responsible for regional disparities in Iran. The study concludes that the Govt. policies implemented under the Third Five year Socio-Economic plan, has reduced regional disparities during the years 1999-2004 in Hamedan Province with respect to health and Medicare facilities distribution through the states, but still more is left to be done for deprived regions or least developed areas to find their deserved place in the economy of the country.