Health Expenditure To Increase From Current 1.15% To 2.5% By 2025: Anupriya Patel
Recognising the current shortage of direct as well as allied health professionals, Anupriya Patel, Minister of state, Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, urged the industry to come up with new solutions and collaborative efforts to provide sound healthcare in the country.
Applauding the medical fraternity the minister said, “There is a dearth of health professionals in India and it is important to find out what the industry calls for and understand the country’s needs. It therefore becomes imperative to recognize the ones doing tremendous work in this field and push them more for their great work.”
Demand for well qualified and skilled allied health workforce in the country is increasing every day due to not only the increasing healthcare demand but also due to advances in healthcare sector, including technology and innovative procedures both in curative and preventive care
The minister called out the industry leaders to come forward and deliberate on the challenges and partnership opportunities, especially in the context of National Health Policy 2027 goals.
“The policy aims to attain the highest possible level of well being for all through a preventive and promotive healthcare development policies and universal access to healthcare services, without anyone having financial hardships like before,” said the minister.
The minster also mentioned the need of increasing the health expenditure in the country from the current 1.15 per cent of the GDP.
“As a part of the new national health policy, we want to take up the health expenditure from the current 1.15 per cent to 2.5 per cent of the GDP by 2025. We have taken it up as a challenge and will implement the same a well-phased manner. We will also increase the state sector’s health spending to more than 8 per cent of their budget by 2020,” added the minister, mentioning the aim to reduce the proportion of the households facing heavy health expenditure from the current level, by at least 25 per cent by 2025.
The minster informed that the ministry is also revising the national list of the essential medicine periodically.
“We have recently regulated the prices of cardiac stems and also knee joints, making them affordable and within the reach of the common man,” said the minister.
Speaking about the Digital solutions and leverage of technology in the sector the minister elaborated on the extensive deployment of the digital tools for improving the efficiency and outcome of the healthcare system across the country.
“The policy recommended setting up of Digital health authority at the national level to regulate, develop and deploy digital help across the continuum of healthcare in India. It further recommends digital architecture to roll out of information to the public consistent with electronic health records,” added the minister.
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