Government must increase spending

National Health Profile (NHP) 2018:

The National Health Profile (NHP) 2018 was released recently by the ministry of health and family welfare.
The health finance indicators along with information on health infrastructure and human resources in health reveal many steps still to be taken in the country.
Good on healthcare indicators:
- The gains in healthcare indicators reflect progress, including:
  - 22% reduction in maternal mortality since 2013
  - Improvements in infant mortality rates
  - Reduction in incidence and prevalence of some of the communicable diseases
But Public health expenditure lagging:
- However, India’s public health expenditure—1% of its gross domestic product (GDP), a negligible improvement from 0.98% in 2014—is still behind many countries, including some low-income categories.
- Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Nepal, much smaller in size, spend 2.5%, 1.6% and 1.1% of their respective GDPs on health.
- It is hoped that the expenditure will increasing in the coming years, with the government proposing to raise the public health expenditure to 2.5% of the GDP by 2025 (as envisaged under the National Health Policy 2017).

Deficit of health care personnel:

As NHP 2018 indicates, the shortage of doctors is a problem most felt in in rural areas where there is one allopathic doctor catering to over 11,000 people.
In the last few years, there has been some improvement in availability of doctors at the primary and community health centres.

But just the numbers is not enough:

Simply increasing seats in undergraduate and post-graduate institutions and opening more medical colleges is not a holistic approach to improving healthcare facilities.
Factors like accountability, accessibility, and affordability of healthcare services and related issues have to be taken care of.
The quality of services and infrastructure for diagnosis and investigations at the primary and community health centres also needs to be improved.

Shortfall in budgetary allocation to the health sector:

A top concern in improving healthcare services and facilities in the country relates to the budgetary allocation to the health sector.
For example, the ministry of health and family welfare received only Rs. 30,000 crore—as it did for FY19, against a projected plan outlay of about Rs. 35,000 crore under the National Health Mission (NHM).
The shortfall in budgetary allocation will affect many aspects of healthcare, including the health infrastructure and manpower in the country.
It will impact the implementation of programmes aimed at reducing the burden of non-communicable and communicable diseases.

States must also utilize funds fully:

Equally important in meeting healthcare requirements of the people is for the states to utilise all of the allocated healthcare funds.
A study found that only 55% of allocated funds were spent by the states in 2017, with some states using less than 50%.

All aspects of healthcare need to be taken care of:

In India, as health status statistics indicate, the burden of non-communicable diseases is growing while there is still much to be desired in reducing the impact of communicable diseases.
The out-of-pocket expenditure on healthcare is high in India,and the government should adopt ways to reduce it.
Not only vaccination needs significant expansion, but also there is a need for newer interventions to reduce the incidence and prevalence of chronic ailments and various non-communicable diseases.
Emphasis needs to be laid on providing formal long-term care facilities and palliative care provisions to meet the increase in demand for such facilities.

Conclusion:

The goal is to provide universal, equitable, affordable, quality services and infrastructure to meet the health needs of the population.
The success of Modicare is dependent on significantly lowering the cost of healthcare and scaling up healthcare facilities.
This requires a commitment towards increasing healthcare expenditures.

Importance:

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