Health inflation above 6% the past year after muted first wave price rise

The metric, in fact, rose to as much as 8.44% last May, when second Covid wave was on; analysts cite huge demand-supply gap, rising staff costs for state of affairs

At a time when health has become a priority post-Covid, the price that the consumer pays for hospitalisation or admission to a nursing home, along with expenses on medication, has remained above six per cent for over the past one year, making it a structural issue.

The spike was despite the fact that the health inflation rate was not high in the immediate aftermath of the first wave of Covid in 2020. The details of inflation are not available for the Covid period of April-May of that year.

Even as the consumer price index (CPI)-based inflation rate stood in the