Indian doctors for Peace and Development terms health as asset necessary for development

Ludhiana, April 7, 2017: Indian doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) has termed health as an asset necessary for the development.
In a statement released on the World Health Day today Dr L S Chawla, Patron of the organization and Dr Arun Mitra, Sr. Vice President said that it is very disturbing that we rank on 131st position in the Human Development Index. Our health indicators are among the lowest in the world, whereas there has been lot of economic development but the benefits have not manifested in the form of food, access to health and education for the society at large. Meager 1.04 % of GDP on public spending on health does not meet the requirements of our people who are going below poverty line every year because of out of pocket expenditure on health. The national health policy 2017 which talks of increasing the public health spending up to 2.5% by 2025 and other promises laid down were critically analyzed at a seminar organized by the IDPD on Health Through Peace held on 1st April 2017 at New Delhi. It has to be noted that the increase in GDP on health to 2.5% has been announced in past also – first in 12th Plan of government of India by 2017 and again in the draft NHP Bill by 2020. It is also to be noted here that the government is already in the process of diluting the health care schemes. They want to dilute the ESI scheme for the workers and encourage insurance for the workers. Insurance cover is premium based and can never be comprehensive.
They added one of the main thrust in the policy document is on “strategic purchasing” of health services from private sector not only for secondary and tertiary care but also in Primary health care in urban setting. This in turn will further weaken the already moribund public health sector which has been starved of sufficient health funding by successive past governments. The NHP 2017 policy is a mixed bag of moderate plan for all stakeholders – promise of modest increase in resources, promise of improved access to care and accountability oriented provisions and formulation of strategic purchasing of care, thus paving way for further expansion of outsourcing to largely unregulated corporate sector. The policy has also argued against bringing a health right bill on the flimsy pretext that country does not meet the precondition for an enabling environment and is yet to reach the required threshold levels of finances and infrastructure.
“We demand minimum of 5% of GDP spending through public sector by the government directly through its own centers and improve its governance and accountability”, they said.