The Hindu Editorial Analysis- 24th December 2022 | Current Affairs & Hindu Analysis: Daily, Weekly & Monthly - UPSC PDF Download

Context

India ranks poorly on multiple health financing indicators. Its public health expenditure as a percentage of its GDP (1.28%) and share of general government expenditure dedicated to health (4.8%) remain akin to the poorest countries.

• About:
  • Healthcare industry comprises hospitals, medical devices, clinical trials, outsourcing, telemedicine, medical tourism, health insurance and medical equipment.
  • India’s healthcare delivery system is categorised into two major components - public and private.
  • The government (public healthcare system), comprises limited secondary and tertiary care institutions in key cities and focuses on providing basic healthcare facilities in the form of Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) in rural areas.
  • The private sector provides a majority of secondary, tertiary, and quaternary care institutions with major concentration in metros, tier-I and tier-II cities.
• Market Statistics:
  • The Indian healthcare sector is expected to record a three-fold rise, growing at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 22% between 2016–22 to reach USD 372 billion in 2022 from USD 110 billion in 2016.
  • In the Economic Survey of 2022, India’s public expenditure on healthcare stood at 2.1% of GDP in 2021-22 against 1.8% in 2020-21 and 1.3% in 2019-20.
  • In FY21, gross direct premium income underwritten by health insurance companies grew 13.3% YoY to Rs. 58,572.46 crore (USD 7.9 billion).
  • The Indian medical tourism market was valued at USD 2.89 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 13.42 billion by 2026.
  • Telemedicine is also expected to reach USD 5.5 billion by 2025.

Potential 

Government Initiatives

• In the Union Budget 2022-23:Rs. 86,200.65 crore (US$ 11.28 billion) was allocated to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW).
• Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) was allocated Rs. 10,000 crore (US$ 1.31 billion)Human Resources for Health and Medical Education was allotted Rs. 7,500 crore (US$ 982.91 million).
• The National Health Mission was allotted Rs. 37,000 crore (US$ 4.84 billion).
• Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) was allotted Rs. 6,412 crore (US$ 840.32 million).
• In November 2021, the Government of India, the Government of Meghalaya and the World Bank signed a US$ 40-million health project for the state of Meghalaya. 
• In September 2021, Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi launched the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission. 
  • The mission will connect the digital health solutions of hospitals across the country with each other. Under this, every citizen will now get a digital health ID and their health record will be digitally protected.
•  The Ministry of Health has issued guidelines to states to establish a public health cadre.

Issues /Challenges

• India’s healthcare system has been battling various issues, including the low number of institutions and less-than-adequate human resources .
• India has been struggling with deficient infrastructure in the form of lack of well-equipped medical institutes for quite a while now. 
• Shortage of efficient and trained manpower and The situation remains worrisome in rural areas.
• Even prior to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, healthcare facilities had been feeling the strain due to unmanageable patient-load. 
• High out-of-pocket expenditure remains a stress factor.

Conclusion and Way Forward

• There is an urgency to focus on all the three levels of primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare, it is imperative that the government look towards improving primary health care as a public good.
• The lesson emerging most unequivocally from the pandemic experience is that if India does not want a repeat of the immeasurable suffering and the social and economic loss, we need to make public health a central focus. 
• There is also a need to declutter policy dialogue and provide clarity to the nomenclatures. 
• India needs to move beyond the doctor-led system and paramedicalise several functions.