A Booster Shot For Healthcare

The National Digital Health Ecosystem and the Tele Mental Health Programme are pathfinding schemes that cope with the exigencies of the times. Even so, did the Finance Minister live up to the expectations of the healthcare industry? BW Businessworld tries to find out

- Upasana

A VIRUS HAS ALERTED the whole wide world to the importance of public expenditure on health and India has been pro-active in combatting the coronavirus right from the start. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman informed the Lok Sabha on 1 February that the government would spend Rs 64,180 crore over the next six years to improve healthcare services. She said 95 per cent of 112 aspirational districts have made significant progress on healthcare infrastructure and other parameters and efforts would now be made to work on districts that were lagging behind. The high points of the government stance in tackling the enormous needs of healthcare in India, however, are not really the amount of money the government intends to spend, but the issues it addresses, namely the growing menace of mental health in pandemic-driven times and putting healthcare on a digital framework. Both the initiatives have received applause all around.

Even so, as the Economic Survey for the 2021-2022 financial year tabled in Parliament on 28 January points out, India ranks 179 out of 189 countries who have prioritised health in their government budgets. So, a great deal remains to be done. Since health is a state subject in India, spending on healthcare by the states matters the most when inspecting government healthcare spendings. The document indicates that a one per cent increase in public spending to 2.5-3 per cent of GDP could decrease out-of-pocket expenditures (read personal spendings) from 65 per cent to 30 per cent of the overall healthcare expenditure.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS:

1. Rolling out of an open platform for the National Digital Health Ecosystem