Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Government should strengthen public health system' that was published in Newsband

Government should strengthen public health system

India can ill-afford the neglect of the public healthcare sector. Universal healthcare can be provided merely through insurance coverage for hospitalisation.

The finance minister, in the last full budget of the present government, focused on health. The budgetary allocation for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is at ₹54,600 crore. This is the minimum required for a country to provide essential health services.

The finance minister announced the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS), that he claimed would be the “world’s largest government-funded healthcare programme” for 10 crore poor and vulnerable families. This would provide publicly funded insurance coverage of ₹5 lakh per family for hospitalisation.

For ensuring primary healthcare,₹1,200 crore has been allocated for 1.5 lakh health and wellness centres that would provide “compre­hensive health care,” including for non-communicable diseases, and maternal and child health services, as well as free essential drugs and diagnostic services.

The budgetary allocation for the ­National Health Mission (NHM), of which the health and wellness centres will also be a part, is at ₹30,634 crore,

This continued neglect of healthcare is despite the severity of the health burden in the country, where more than one-third of children up to five years of age suffer from malnutrition and where the burden of non-communicable and infectious diseases has only grown. There are growing incidence of huge out-of-pocket health expenditures leading families into utter financial distress bordering on penury. In India, 67% of all health expenditure remains OOPE

Dependence on the private sector, even for those who can ill-afford it, has happened on account of the neglect of the public healthcare sector. With the public healthcare centres suffering from poor infrastructure, under-staffing, and lack of equipment and medicines, even the poor have been left with no option but to turn to private healthcare. The existing healthcare system, based as it is largely on private for-profit provision, puts profits well above the health and well-being of the Indian people.

India’s focus must be on strengthening public health systems at all levels by investing in better infrastructure as well as human resources.