New Delhi: As Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman will be presenting Union Budget 2022 in the Parliament on Tuesday, India's healthcare fraternity expects that the central government should hike fund allocation in the health sector besides improving the rural healthcare infrastructure.
The healthcare providers also said that government should consider the continuation of tax incentives as well as increasing the public expenditure on the healthcare sector of the GDP.
Keeping in mind the current Covid19 pandemic, the healthcare providers believe that government should take concrete steps to improve the healthcare facilities in the rural sector.
"Health budget is very low in comparison to GDP. We need to increase the health budget," said Dr. Jayesh M Lele, secretary-general of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) to ETV Bharat.
Dr. Lele expects that like the previous budget, the Centre would definitely announce something special as far as Covid19 vaccination is concerned.
"More than 150 crore free vaccines have already been administered in India. And with the approval to vaccinate adolescent, the government need more funds to provide vaccines free of cost," said Dr. Lele.
Last year, the government has sanctioned Rs 35,000 crore for the Covid19 vaccine alone. In the 2021-22 budget, the central government allocated an increase for health by 137 percent to Rs 2.23 lakh crore in comparison to the 2020-21 budget.
In fact, the IMA has suggested nine points that need to be looked into by the central government in budget 2022. The IMA said that every citizen should be entitled to essential primary, secondary and tertiary health care services that will be guaranteed by the central government.
"The Covid19 pandemic experience has a strong case for declaring health as a fundamental right," the IMA said.
It suggested making AB PMJAY a dedicated instrument for strategic purchase from the private sector and to create a retainership. The IMA also suggested that a geographical strategy of providing service uniformly in every taluk has to be evolved simultaneously.
The IMA also suggested a dynamic and transparent costing and pricing system. "Government interface with the hospitals to be entirely online eliminating points of corruption like Arogya Mithram," the IMA said in its suggestions to the government.
The IMA said that public health management means not only accessing preventive and promotive measures of health but also organizing primary, secondary, and tertiary healthcare services as an integral part of crystalized healthcare delivery system.
"The structure of the Indian Medical Service would be in to form of a cadre specialized in character for the dispensation of healthcare services including those in the domain of public health excluding the domain of medical education in its entirety as All India Civil Services emanating out of All India Services Act, 1951," the IMA said.
The IMA said that the government can also help to foster medical tourism by encouraging private investment in healthcare services by both domestic hospitals chains and through foreign direct investment as well as by reducing tariffs on imported medical equipment utilized by these chains.
Referring to the pricing of drugs, the IMA said that government should ban differential pricing of a drug under different brand names (generic, trade generic, or branded generic) by a company.
"The government needs to bring in an appropriate policy intervention which would reduce the cost of medicines. This will help both, the government to reduce the government-sponsored healthcare expenses and also the general public who directly avail the medical service," the IMA said.
The medical association further expects that the government should minimize the GST rate labs on medical equipment.
"Currently medical equipment, machines, and furniture are broadly covered under the 18 percent GST rate labs. As we use highly sophisticated equipment in the healthcare services to ensure quality and they are already expensive, it is requested to reduce the rate of GST to minimize the burden on the patients. Earlier, it was only 5 percent VAT," the IMA said.
