Union Health Minister J P Nadda today said the government is committed to provide affordable and quality health care to the people of the country.
Chairing the 12th conference of the Central Council of Health and Family Welfare to discuss the draft National Health Policy (NHP), 2016, Nadda said government is committed to provide affordable and quality health care to the people of the country.
The National Health Policy which is being framed has laid due emphasis on increasing the budget outlay on health and maximum expenditure will be done in key areas including primary health sector, mainstreaming of AYUSH and health insurance services.
The Central Council of Health and Family Welfare which was formed to provide support and advice to the Health department on policy formulation also endorsed the draft NHP during the meeting.
"The purpose of the council meeting was to seek feedback and suggestions from the states, experts and civil society organisations on the draft NHP which has been placed in the public domain in 2015 and received close to 5000 suggestions, so as to improve its various dimensions in making it people-centric," Nadda said.
Pointing out that in alignment with the vision of cooperative federalism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Nadda said their (states) suggestions, which represent the diversity and uniqueness of different parts of the country, are valuable and will lend meaning to this important NHP being framed after 2002'.
Union Health secretary B P Sharma said the consultation with the states and other stakeholders will provide rich inputs on improving the contours of the NHP.
"Due emphasis has been placed on financing and increasing the budget outlay on health where 2/3rd of the outlay would be on the primary health sector, mainstreaming of AYUSH, reducing out-of-pocket expenditure...
"...Health insurance services, free drugs and diagnostics, improving secondary and tertiary care along with human resources at various levels with appropriate skills, strengthening regulatory frameworks for food and drugs and providing patient-centric care at affordable rates," Sharma said.
Nadda said the new NHP is being framed in the era of the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the deliberations at the Council will help in drawing a roadmap for the way forward.
"This was also important as we now have to challenge the non-communicable diseases along with the communicable disease burden. It is important to pay sharper attention to promotive and preventive health, strengthen the health care infrastructure in the states covering the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors...
"work out models of sustainable financing models to provide affordable health care, see how IT can be used to reach
out to communities which are far flung and remote and involve states more meaningfully in implementation of the schemes," he said adding that a framework of implementation will be drawn as part of the NHP.
While Health ministers from Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Uttarakhand, and Jharkhand were present during the occasion, other states were represented by top officials.
The resolution adopted at the close of the Council meeting said that the council recognizes that the health needs of the country have changed since the last NHP and to address the need to improve the performance of the health system, a draft NHP has been formulated by the Health Ministry.
It also acknowledged that the Draft NHP has been formulated by the Union Health Ministry in consultation with the state governments and the civil society and the Council broadly endorses the draft NHP.
Some of the topics highlighted by the Health Ministers during the meeting include integration of public and private health care services, enhancing awareness among masses for preventive health, addressing shortage of doctors and paramedic staff through opening more medical colleges in the public sector and enhancing their skills through periodic refresher courses.
The Ministers also highlighted issues like convergence among related ministries covering education, drinking water and sanitation, food security to address malnutrition, strengthening research in new and emerging diseases, timely payment of remuneration to health workers and set up research institutions to study epidemiology of diseases to provide data for evidence-based policy making amongst others.
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Speaking at the conference, Haryana Health and Medical
Education Minister Anil Vij urged the Central government to set up a Central Health Institute for conducting refresher courses for doctors and para-medical staff so that they are apprised about new medicines, techniques and equipments.
He also stressed the need for enhancement in the budget of health sector to provide better health services to the people and the need for opening maximum number of medical colleges to meet the shortage of doctors.
Vij said that there should be frequent inspection of private medical collages so as to keep an eye on their functioning.
Expressing his concern over the sale of medicines at very high prices, he said Central guidelines should be prepared to ensure that the poor and needy get medicines at fair price.
