{"id":225140,"date":"2023-02-04T20:46:46","date_gmt":"2023-02-04T15:16:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=225140"},"modified":"2023-02-20T14:33:46","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T09:03:46","slug":"on-budget-2023-health-in-amrit-kaal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/on-budget-2023-health-in-amrit-kaal\/","title":{"rendered":"On Budget 2023: Health in Amrit Kaal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>&#8211; The post is based on the article <strong>\u201cOn Budget 2023: Health in Amrit Kaal\u201d <\/strong>published in<strong> The Indian Express<\/strong> on <strong>4th February 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Syllabus: <\/strong>GS2- Issues related to development and management of health<\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance<\/strong>&#8211; Health spending<\/p>\n<p><strong>News<\/strong>&#8211; Recently, the central government presented the budget for this year.<\/p>\n<p>The total central government budget for health will be roughly Rs <strong>86,175 crore<\/strong>. It is roughly Rs 615 for every citizen.This is a <strong>2.7% increase<\/strong> from the previous fiscal year.<\/p>\n<p>In real terms, the central government\u2019s health spending has declined.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are issues with health spending in India?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>A day of hospitalisation at a public hospital is estimated at Rs 2,800. At a private hospital, it is Rs 6,800. The Ministry of Health is expected to provide health services at a <strong>low budget<\/strong> . Therefore, the system fails the <strong>most vulnerable<\/strong> and they are forced to turn to the expensive private sector.<\/p>\n<p>The poor, elderly and sick are already at a disadvantage. <strong>A greater proportion of disposable incomes<\/strong> is taken away from a poor household as compared to a non-poor one. It further broadens the gap between the two.<\/p>\n<p>If a working member of the household falls sick, he must often withdraw from active employment. Their <strong>main source of income<\/strong> dries.<\/p>\n<p>Households have to often <strong>sell or mortgage their productive assets<\/strong> to cover the treatment costs. This further reduces their capacity to bounce back.<\/p>\n<p>According to the<strong> WHO<\/strong>, <strong>55 million people<\/strong> fall into poverty or deeper poverty every year due to expenditures on health.<\/p>\n<p>India currently spends about <strong>3.2% of its GDP<\/strong> on health. This is much lower than the average health spending of the Lower and Middle Income Countries. It is around<strong> 5.2% <\/strong>for these countries.<\/p>\n<p>The government spends about Rs 2.8 lakh crore roughly <strong>1.1% of the GDP<\/strong>. In contrast, China spends 3%, Thailand 2.7%.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the way forward for health funding in India?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>First<\/strong>, the National Health Mission allocates less than 3% for <strong>non-communicable diseases<\/strong>. In comparison, the allocation for <strong>communicable diseases is three times more <\/strong>and for <strong>reproductive and child health services<\/strong> about nine times greater.<\/p>\n<p>The burden of disease from NCDs accounts for more than half of the total burden of disease. Greater focus on communicable diseases should be <strong>rebalanced <\/strong>now to pay attention to non-communicable diseases.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Second<\/strong>, <strong>public health and primary health care<\/strong> focus on rural areas. Urban areas have poorly developed infrastructure for primary care. <strong>Greater resources<\/strong> are needed to improve health here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Third<\/strong>,<strong> health research<\/strong> has been neglected for too long. Spending Rs 20 per Indian is inconsistent with the <strong>need for innovations and technologies<\/strong> in the sector.<\/p>\n<p>The bulk of the resources provided to the ICMR goes towards <strong>maintaining the large pool of scientists<\/strong> and the output is poor.<\/p>\n<p>India should follow the example of countries where <strong>government-funded health research<\/strong> is conducted at<strong> academic institutions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The government\u2019s role is to make grants and not to carry out the majority of research. <strong>Competitive funding<\/strong> will encourage the best research.<\/p>\n<p>We must find ways to both find <strong>more money for health, and also more health for the money<\/strong> to ensure that all Indians achieve their true potential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source&#8211; The post is based on the article \u201cOn Budget 2023: Health in Amrit Kaal\u201d published in The Indian Express on 4th February 2023. Syllabus: GS2- Issues related to development and management of health Relevance&#8211; Health spending News&#8211; Recently, the central government presented the budget for this year. The total central government budget for health&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/on-budget-2023-health-in-amrit-kaal\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">On Budget 2023: Health in Amrit Kaal<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10500],"class_list":["post-225140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-indian-express","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}