Nearly half of all deaths recorded in 2024 in India occurred without medical attention from a trained professional, according to the latest Sample Registration System (SRS) Statistical Report. The share of such deaths stood at 45.5% in 2024, more than double the 18% recorded in 2020, and has remained close to half of all deaths since 2021.
This category includes individuals who received no medical attention at the time of death or were attended only by an untrained person. In practice, this often indicates deaths at home or outside formal medical care, though the place of death is not specified in the data.
The sudden and sustained jump is difficult to explain from the published data alone. A rise in such deaths can reflect poor access to healthcare, high costs of treatment, or weak enforcement of death reporting. However, the scale and speed of the increase after 2020 also raises the possibility of changes in how medical attendance at death was classified or reported. The Times of India sought a response from the office of the Registrar General of India, which conducts the SRS, but received no reply.
Bihar Tops in Deaths Without Medical Care
The rural-urban split supports the possibility that access to healthcare plays a role. In 2024, the proportion of deaths without trained medical attention was considerably higher in rural areas, at 48.9%, compared to urban areas at 36.1%. This pattern has been consistent since 2014 and holds across states.
State-level data also shows a wide gap. Kerala, at 26.8%, and Jammu & Kashmir, at 29.2%, had the lowest proportion of deaths without trained medical attention in 2024. In contrast, Bihar at 67.8%, Jharkhand at 61.8%, and Chhattisgarh at 60.4% recorded the highest proportions. The trend is striking because it comes after years of expansion in hospital infrastructure, health insurance schemes, and public healthcare programmes across the country.
Decline in Hospital Deaths
About a quarter of all deaths in 2024, or 24.7%, occurred in government hospitals, only slightly lower than the 27% recorded in 2014. From 2014, the share of deaths in government or private hospitals had risen steadily until 2020, when 30% of deaths occurred in government hospitals and 19% in private hospitals. However, it has fallen since then. Overall, the 2024 share of deaths in government and private hospitals was broadly similar to the level in 2014.
But the proportion of deaths where medical attention was received from a qualified professional fell sharply from 35% in 2014 to 14% in 2024. Public health experts say the findings underline persistent inequalities in access to healthcare, especially in rural and poorer regions.
