Prescriptions For A Post-Covid Health System

Public healthcare needs a booster shot. Health data sharing, research and diagnostics must receive policy priority

- Urvashi Prasad/ Vedeika Shekhar

When the dust settles on Covid-19, we must move on with the everlasting appreciation that health is much more than a ‘social sector’. When the pandemic came around, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea seemed better prepared than others. Closer home, the “Kerala model” has been widely acknowledged. The common thread linking all of them is a consistent investment in healthcare and systemic changes based on lessons learned from SARS, H1N1 and Nipah. Hence, once this crisis is over, India must use the opportunity to learn and focus on five key health system reforms.

First, India’s public financing for health remains at less than 1 per cent of the GDP. While the Centre is committed to raising this figure to 2.5 per cent by 2025, States, too, need to ramp up healthcare spending to at least 8 per cent of their budgets. Moreover, within the investments we make, public and primary health must get greater priority. Prevention is our best bet. Once diseases begin to spread, any number of hospitals and doctors seem inadequate. The US, the latest epicentre of Covid-19, is a case in point. In 2019, its healthcare spending was equivalent to 17.8 per cent of its GDP. Still, health outcomes in the US are far from the best; perhaps due to predominance of private insurance and hospitalisation.