Make healthcare affordable, improve facilities: MPs to govt

Members in Rajya Sabha today made a strong case for making healthcare affordable and improving facilities, saying it had become a business and virtually out of reach for the poor.
Participating in a discussion on the working of Health and Family Welfare Ministry, Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad asked the government to focus on providing free facilities to the poor rather than go in for an insurance scheme which will not cover people in remote villages.
Azad, himself a former Health Minister, said everyone knows that what is the actual bill of a patient and what it becomes when there is insurance involved.

He said the Health Ministers of UK and the US had approached him to study the Indian system as the insurance scheme that they had was bleeding them.
"If it has not been a success in UK or US, how can it be a success in India? Insurance will not be able to reach the remote villages," he said, adding that the UPA government had ensured that the poor get free treatment and for this various schemes were launched.
"The government should focus on providing free facilities to the poor rather than insurance," the senior Congress leader said and asked the government to update the Opposition about various schemes launched during the UPA rule, most which were completed or mid-way.

He also sought information on National Rural Health Mission, various initiatives for the healthcare of mothers and child, creation of new AIIMS and medical colleges.

Members of several parties also sought steps to make the health system more affordable. Ravi Prakash Verma (SP) claimed that a lobby of allopathic medicines was trying to influence public representatives and governments as healthcare and treatment has become "a big business".
He also said the government's expenditure on healthcare in percentage terms of GDP was even less than that of many countries including Nepal and Bangladesh.
While the government had set up many missions, they were not leading to desired outcome and favoured a result oriented approach.

Sanjay Raut (Shiv Sena) said that health has become a
business and companies make money with the outbreak of diseases like dengue.
Emphasising the need to increase budget allocation for health sector, he sought more funds for research in cancer as the disease is expected growth at 21 per cent by 2020. Research need to be conducted on zika virus, he said and asked the government to focus on high mortality rate of children below 5 years.
Veer Singh (BSP) spoke about the challenges of malnutrition. He also said that private hospitals should not be allowed to charge exhorbitant fees and suggested that charges for services provided by hospitals should be fixed.

He also sought to know why the prices of the same medicine varied when manufactured by different companies and sought price control of medicines to benefit consumers.
C P Narayanan (CPI-M) said if the government wanted to leave the people at the mercy of private insurance companies, it will lead to a great disaster.
Terming the government expenditure on health as inadequate, he also said because of the way the government hospitals were being treated by the government, 70 per cent of the population was dependant on private hospitals.
Narayanan alleged corruption in the country's health system and said the Supreme Court had to intervene to pave way for the NEET exam as there were instances of corruption relating to seats in a vast number of private colleges.

Bhupinder Singh (BJD) said the budget allocation for the National Health Mission should be increased from the 60:40 ratio to 75:25 and allocation of adequate funds to set up central institute of yoga for which the state has already identified the land.
Renuka Chowdhary (Cong) talked about how patients have become victim of private hospitals and emphasised on the need to establish public medical facilities using MGNREGA.
She also expressed concern over lack of adequate facilities for aged patients in hospitals and unethical practices being practiced by private hospitals. She also sought more fund allocation for health sector.
D Raja (CPI) lamented that while the country faced severe crunch of professionals in the health sector, the condition of health facilities in the country were lagging behind nations Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

Demanding adequate spending on health sector, Raja also sought to know whether there was any regulatory mechanism to regulate private hospitals and check commercialisation of health services.
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Agreeing with the CPI leader, Meghraj Jain (BJP) said the Medical Council had become "a hub of corruption" alleging that huge bribes were taken for recognising medical colleges. "Such Medical Councial should be dissolved. If need be, a bill should be brought to effect this," he said.
He also demanded training for doctors in rural areas to ensure medical services in remote areas where qualified MBBS doctors are not keen to practice and urged the government to consider ways to provide drugs at cheaper rates.

Vandana Chavan (NCP) asked the government to allocate more funds for health sector. She stressed the need to focus on states having children suffering from malnutrition stunts growth.
She also expressed concerned over rising mental illness in the country and lack of awareness about the treatment and sought for posting of psychiatrists at medical centres.
Ram Kumar Kashyap (IND) expressed concern over costly medical services in the country, while Md Ali Khan (Cong) demanded a regulatory authority for the sector in line with real estate.
Satyanarayan Jatiya (BJP) stressed the need to control private medical colleges saying they were charging Rs 50 to 60 lakh for a berth.

Ranjib Biswal (Cong) said there was an urgent need to enhance budget allocation for public health as the spending in India was much lower than China, Brazil and the US.
Unfortunately the government is pruning the budget for the sector despite that the fact that India ranked 112 out of 190 in a WHO ranking on health segment, he said, adding "out of pocket spending on helath in India has risen to 78 per cent."
Ramdas Athawale (RPI) said private hospitals were charging abnormally high from people and demanded that steps be taken to augment health infrastructure in the country.

In the same vein, Vijaylaxmi Sadho (Cong) said sadly India was becoming a house of major diseases and commercialisation of health sector was rampant. She demanded that basic health infrastructure right from primary health centre be strengthened to provide relief to the poor.
K P Ramalingam (DMK) said the sordid state of affairs of health system in the country was such that a person lost his life every minute due to stroke here.
"Health Ministry is in the ICU here...Medical education has been privatised...Right of states were being encroached upon," he said and demanded immediate intervention of the governemnt to ensure proper health facilties.