In the upcoming Budget the Indian Medical Association ( IMA ) sought investments in the public sector hospitals.
The IMA President pointed out that restructuring in the Ayushman Bharat scheme and strengthening of human resources in Government Hospital and the investment into health sector has stagnated despite rise in disease burden.
“Our health investment has stagnated at 1.1% of the GDP for many years. This underfunding is a reason for poor infrastructure and lack of human resources. So, we feel without including the budget of drinking water sanitation, which we call health determinants, the core health budget should be at least 2.5%. We would want that the public sector ( hospitals ) be strengthened and human resources increase”, the Indian Medical Association President, Dr RV Asokan.
“Two-third of the funding for Ayushman Bharat goes to government hospitals. I think that’s not a great idea because the people are not feeling the relief. Because already it is free. So, it is another way of funding the government hospitals, rather through insurance companies, where they take a share of service provision for 10 to 15 per cent, which is a poor way of funding our government hospitals” Dr Asokan said.
“The very concern in government sector is there has been ad-hoc appointment of doctors across the country for eight to nine months, so they don’t have a sense of belonging. It has to be through regular Public Service Commission’s on a permanent basis with all those accompanying benefits then only the government sector could be run properly,” he said.
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