New Delhi, January 25: In last 67 years since Independence, India has come a long way while fighting with key indicators like Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR), Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), child malnutrition, but still, there is a huge requirement on spending when it comes to the healthcare sector.
In India, the healthcare sector is considered ass one of the biggest sectors in terms of both revenue and employment. While Indian healthcare sector is predicted to grow by $ 280 billion in size by 2020. But the country is still lagging behind in healthcare sector, especially when it comes to medical treatments, high mortality rates, lack of awareness and malnutrition, amongst other. Experts believe that this is mostly due to the patchiness in health care system. Also, the healthcare sector in India is overcrowded with less number of public hospital and a large number of private players.
Some reports suggest that the Indian healthcare system, hospitals and clinics are clustered on one hand and unaffordable on the other hand. Due to this huge difference, it has created a vacuum in the industry which has further created an evident divide.
In last one decade, it has been observed that across India there is a shortfall in the specialist at some places. Qualified doctors, nurses and trained health specialists are missing from hospitals which need them the most. According to the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) numbers show a decrease in the use of public hospitals over the past two decades only 32 percent of urban Indians use them now, compared with 43 percent in 1995-96. Due to this, there is a big human resource challenge for the healthcare administration which has created roadblocks towards a healthy India. Also, the shortage of expert medical professionals is one of the key challenges facing the Indian health care.
Poor health infrastructure is also one of the biggest challenges that Indian health sector faces each and every day. India’s health infrastructure is poor when compared to other developing and large countries. The country has one bed for every 1,050 patients. To fulfil country’s healthcare demand, India needs to add more beds to its hospitals. In last several years, many healthcare advocates have raised the issue of India’s minimal spending of its GDP on healthcare sector which has further made it difficult for public hospitals to provide quality services.
Also, the expenditure in healthcare technology and IT is considerably low in India. There are reports that hospitals in India need to increase their IT spend considerably to provide improved and patient-centric service. Investment in Indian healthcare sector is the need of the hour.
In 2016, the Union government allocated funds for the New Health Protection Scheme which aimed to provide health cover to every family, however, there is a strong need to increase the awareness about the scheme and generate a stronger network and guarantee the accessibility of the scheme. If this is done in a proper way it can save thousands of life each year.
These are some of the requirements from the Union Budget 2017 for healthcare sector:
1) Preparing an efficient healthcare budget with appropriate utilisation and management.
2) Choice in health care financing and fund allocation, avoiding “one size fits all” policy.
3) Establishment of audit mechanism and full proof financial monitoring.
4) Better Human Resource Managament, better capacity building and training to staff.
5) Wider spread of health insurance products.
6) Improving resource allocation through cost effectiveness.
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