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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Why the Poor Will Not Be the True Beneficiaries of the 'World's Largest Health Programme' -Dipa Sinha

Why the Poor Will Not Be the True Beneficiaries of the 'World's Largest Health Programme' -Dipa Sinha

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published Published on Feb 3, 2018   modified Modified on Feb 3, 2018
-TheWire.in

While the government claims it “will bring healthcare system closer to the homes of people,” it hopes to do this through the private sector, not by strengthening the public health system.

Health is being hailed as the biggest winner of Budget 2018, but a cursory look at the numbers shows that there is nothing to celebrate as far as the health budget is concerned. In fact, the Budget this year once again highlights the government’s complete lack of vision as far as ensuring ‘Health for All’ is concerned. The finance minister’s speech mentions two main interventions – health and wellness centres that “will bring healthcare system closer to the homes of people” and “a flagship National Health Protection Scheme to cover over ten crore poor and vulnerable families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries) providing coverage up to five lakh rupees per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation”.

The second aspect has made headlines today as being something ‘revolutionary’ in healthcare. Neither of these is a new initiative, nor are these likely to improve access to healthcare or reduce out-of-pocket expenditure.

Big push for the private sector?

Given the noise that is being made around how much of a boost the health sector has been given, one’s led into believing that there is a major increase in the Budget. On the contrary, the allocation for the Department of Health and Family Welfare for 2018-19 is Rs 52,800 crore, an increase of about 2.5% from the revised estimate for 2017-18 – Rs 51,550.85 crore.

Therefore, in real terms and as a percentage of GDP, there is a decline in the health budget this year.

To achieve 1.5 lakh health and wellness centres, the finance minister has allocated a royal sum of Rs 1,200 crore ‘for this flagship programme’. This comes to Rs 80,000 per sub-centre – not enough to fill the gaps. Moreover, this is not a new initiative, as it featured in the 2017 Budget speech as well. There have been no reports on the experience from this in the previous year, neither is it clear what this actually means.

Currently, sub-centres suffer from poor infrastructure, under-staffing and lack of equipment and medicines. According to the rural health statistics released by the health ministry, of the 1,56,231 sub-centres, only 17,204 (11%) met the Indian Public Health Standards as on March 31, 2017. About 20% of the sub-centres do not even have regular water supply and 23% are without electricity. Over 6,000 sub-centres do not have an ANM/health worker (female) and almost one lakh centres do not have a health worker (male). There are 4,243 centres without either. One can safely assume that for a sub-centre to become a health and wellness centre, the least that could be expected is that these basic facilities and human resources are provided. It is hard to understand how this can be done with the meagre funds that have been allocated.

Now, coming to the second announcement, which is the ‘world’s largest government-funded healthcare programme’. Here as well it should be remembered that in the Budget speech of 2016 – by the same finance minister – a similar claim had been made. In 2016, it was announced that the “the government will launch a new health protection scheme which will provide health cover up to rupees one lakh per family”. Two years on, the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) cover remains at Rs 30,000 a year with the promise that this will now be increased to Rs 5 lakh. The amount allocated for the RSBY in 2016-17, to give a cover of Rs 1 lakh for one-third of the population, was Rs 1,500 crore.

This never took off and less than Rs 500 crore was spent. Last year, too, the Budget was revised to less than 50% of what was initially estimated. The allocation this year sees a small increase to Rs 2,000 crore. These figures put the credibility of these announcements themselves under doubt.

Please click here to read more.

TheWire.in, 1 February, 2018, https://thewire.in/220070/poor-will-not-true-beneficiaries-worlds-largest-health-programme/


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