Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitleywhile presenting the general Budget 2018-19 in Parliament on Thursday proposed to introduce what he termed as the World’s Largest Health Protection Scheme covering over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families with a family limit upto 5 lakh rupees for secondary and tertiary treatment. The scheme is expected to benefit 50 crore people.
While the announcement of the Health Protection Scheme is no doubt a welcome move, it also raises a genuine concern of what are the government’s plans to prevent the unscrupulous healthcare providers from ‘over-treating’ or ‘pseudo-treating’ poor and vulnerable patients just to increase their revenue, without bothering the welfare of the poor people.
After all, how long it was when we read media stories of unnecessary hysterectomies of poor and vulnerable girls and women putting their life at huge risk? Surely, the government would not like its well-intentioned initiative to go haywire. And so, there is an urgent need for a controlling mechanism to ensure the health insurance scheme for the poor people is solely being used for the purpose it’s actually meant for.
However, if we talk business, the important announcement of so-called Modicare is going to bring only smile to the private healthcare providers in India who can expect additional flow of patients who might otherwise not been able to afford secondary and tertiary care being provided by the private hospitals. So, you can expect a rise in the stock prices of listed entities like Apollo Hospitals, Fortis Healthcare and Narayana Hrudayalaya.
This announcement of widening the ambit of universal healthcare may also benefit, at least to some extent, government hospitals who can provide even such treatments to poor and vulnerable patients that may expect the patients to purchase some consumables on their own from outside.
While recounting the measures already taken by the government in the last few years, the finance minister said, “More than 800 medicines are being sold at lower price through more than 3,000 Jan Aushadhi Centres. The cost of stents has been controlled. Special scheme for free dialysis of poor has been initiated.”
This is something which is bound to make the pharmaceutical and medical devices industries concerned about what’s in store for them in the coming years. For there is now very little chance of the government relaxing its measures to control the price of at least essential drugs and more frequently used medical devices like stents, a measure which has impacted the bottom-line of many companies operating in the two industries.
The price control measure has apparently disincentivised some multinational pharmaceutical and medical devices companies from bringing some of their latest products to the Indian market, which is something not being liked by many doctors and patients in the country who didn’t want to be deprived of the latest medical advances.
In order to further enhance accessibility of quality medical education and healthcare, the minister proposed to set up 24 new government medical colleges and hospitals by upgrading existing district hospitals in the country.
“This would ensure that there is at least one medical college for every three parliamentary constituencies and at least one government medical college in each state of the country,” he said. This is no doubt a welcome measure but the concern is, are there enough experienced and quality medical teachers in the country to teach in new medical colleges?
If we were to believe media reports, there are even some AIIMS like institutes which are still struggling to fill up their faculty positions. Now, this is something the government needs to ponder upon, for it’s not the building which makes a medical college, it needs quality faculty too to teach its students.
Jaitley said, “TB claims more lives every year than any other infectious disease. It affects mainly poor and malnourished people. My Government has, therefore, decided to allocate additional Rs 600 crore to provide nutritional support to all TB patients at the rate of Rs 500 per month for the duration of their treatment.”
Medical practitioners and researchers have been for long highlighting the close connection between malnutrition and TB incidents in the country and let’s hope the effective implementation of this important and timely measure helps curb the number of TB cases in the country.
The minister also proposed to allocate Rs 1200 crore in the budget for the government’s flagship healthcare programme the National Health Policy, 2017, which envisions Health and Wellness Centres as the foundation of India’s health system. He said, “These 1.5 lakh centres will bring healthcare system closer to the homes of people. These centres will provide comprehensive healthcare, including for non-communicable diseases and maternal and child health services. These centres will also provide free essential drugs and diagnostic services.”
Accepting the need for strong public private partnership to realise universal healthcare in the country, the minister said, “I also invite contribution of the private sector through CSR (corporate social responsibility) and philanthropic institutions in adopting these centres.” Though, he didn’t mention specifically, there should be also scope for inviting private healthcare providers to make this scheme really successful.
While touching upon the issues of universal healthcare, communicable diseases, drug prices, affordable medical devices and wide spread medical education, the finance minister somehow left the diagnostic and medical equipment industry unattended.
While the diagnostic industry was expecting some sort of tax incentives to encourage people to go for preventive diagnostics, the domestic medical equipment companies were expecting some sort of tax incentives to help realise the government initiative of ‘Make In India’ in the healthcare sector. But nothing sort of these were announced in Thursday’s budget proposals.
While the announcement of the Health Protection Scheme is no doubt a welcome move, it also raises a genuine concern of what are the government’s plans to prevent the unscrupulous healthcare providers from ‘over-treating’ or ‘pseudo-treating’ poor and vulnerable patients just to increase their revenue, without bothering the welfare of the poor people.
After all, how long it was when we read media stories of unnecessary hysterectomies of poor and vulnerable girls and women putting their life at huge risk? Surely, the government would not like its well-intentioned initiative to go haywire. And so, there is an urgent need for a controlling mechanism to ensure the health insurance scheme for the poor people is solely being used for the purpose it’s actually meant for.
However, if we talk business, the important announcement of so-called Modicare is going to bring only smile to the private healthcare providers in India who can expect additional flow of patients who might otherwise not been able to afford secondary and tertiary care being provided by the private hospitals. So, you can expect a rise in the stock prices of listed entities like Apollo Hospitals, Fortis Healthcare and Narayana Hrudayalaya.
This announcement of widening the ambit of universal healthcare may also benefit, at least to some extent, government hospitals who can provide even such treatments to poor and vulnerable patients that may expect the patients to purchase some consumables on their own from outside.
While recounting the measures already taken by the government in the last few years, the finance minister said, “More than 800 medicines are being sold at lower price through more than 3,000 Jan Aushadhi Centres. The cost of stents has been controlled. Special scheme for free dialysis of poor has been initiated.”
This is something which is bound to make the pharmaceutical and medical devices industries concerned about what’s in store for them in the coming years. For there is now very little chance of the government relaxing its measures to control the price of at least essential drugs and more frequently used medical devices like stents, a measure which has impacted the bottom-line of many companies operating in the two industries.
The price control measure has apparently disincentivised some multinational pharmaceutical and medical devices companies from bringing some of their latest products to the Indian market, which is something not being liked by many doctors and patients in the country who didn’t want to be deprived of the latest medical advances.
In order to further enhance accessibility of quality medical education and healthcare, the minister proposed to set up 24 new government medical colleges and hospitals by upgrading existing district hospitals in the country.
“This would ensure that there is at least one medical college for every three parliamentary constituencies and at least one government medical college in each state of the country,” he said. This is no doubt a welcome measure but the concern is, are there enough experienced and quality medical teachers in the country to teach in new medical colleges?
If we were to believe media reports, there are even some AIIMS like institutes which are still struggling to fill up their faculty positions. Now, this is something the government needs to ponder upon, for it’s not the building which makes a medical college, it needs quality faculty too to teach its students.
Jaitley said, “TB claims more lives every year than any other infectious disease. It affects mainly poor and malnourished people. My Government has, therefore, decided to allocate additional Rs 600 crore to provide nutritional support to all TB patients at the rate of Rs 500 per month for the duration of their treatment.”
Medical practitioners and researchers have been for long highlighting the close connection between malnutrition and TB incidents in the country and let’s hope the effective implementation of this important and timely measure helps curb the number of TB cases in the country.
The minister also proposed to allocate Rs 1200 crore in the budget for the government’s flagship healthcare programme the National Health Policy, 2017, which envisions Health and Wellness Centres as the foundation of India’s health system. He said, “These 1.5 lakh centres will bring healthcare system closer to the homes of people. These centres will provide comprehensive healthcare, including for non-communicable diseases and maternal and child health services. These centres will also provide free essential drugs and diagnostic services.”
Accepting the need for strong public private partnership to realise universal healthcare in the country, the minister said, “I also invite contribution of the private sector through CSR (corporate social responsibility) and philanthropic institutions in adopting these centres.” Though, he didn’t mention specifically, there should be also scope for inviting private healthcare providers to make this scheme really successful.
While touching upon the issues of universal healthcare, communicable diseases, drug prices, affordable medical devices and wide spread medical education, the finance minister somehow left the diagnostic and medical equipment industry unattended.
While the diagnostic industry was expecting some sort of tax incentives to encourage people to go for preventive diagnostics, the domestic medical equipment companies were expecting some sort of tax incentives to help realise the government initiative of ‘Make In India’ in the healthcare sector. But nothing sort of these were announced in Thursday’s budget proposals.