As the country gears up for the Lok Sabha polls next year, a group of well-known doctors on Wednesday released the “Ethical Doctors” manifesto urging political parties to make ‘health for all’ their poll agenda, and regulate and reform the private sector on a priority basis to cut down the catastrophic health expenditure that is taking a toll on the common man.
“It’s time that the Government brings ‘healthcare for all’ on top of its agenda given that increasing out of pocket expenditure on the health is pushing people below the poverty level. The commitment to bring in a system of universal healthcare by strengthening and expanding the public health system will ensure a rationale, humane health care system in India,” said Dr Arun Mitra, ENT Surgeon and member of the Alliance of Doctors for Ethical Healthcare (ADEH).
Gurinder Grewal, a physician in Ludhiana and former president of the Punjab Medical Council, backed the proposal put forward by the Niti Ayog to cap the trade margins to 30 per cent for all medical devices. Last year, he had sent to the PMO the Government pharmaceutical industry documents to show how maximum retail prices of medicines are fixed to help hospitals earn profits on each tablet or injection sold.
“We want strict action against such unethical practices and other forms of corruption in healthcare and medical education. We want the common man to have faith and trust in the medical profession which at present is depleting,” Grewal said while taking to reporters here.
The doctors also expressed their displeasure at the provisions enabled in the recently launched National Health Protection System as well as the programme for the provision of Comprehensive Primary Health Care alleging that they were based on “faulty foundation.”
“Apart from low budgetary provision, there is every possibility that the majority of the Government’s expenditure on healthcare will be diverted to the high-end interventional procedures only available in medium and big hospitals.
“In the absence of robust regulatory mechanism and mandatory standard treatment guidelines, we fear that the schemes will be misused by the corporate and big private hospitals,” said Dr Samiran Nundy, Delhi-based surgical gastroenterologist.
The ADEH members have been actively voicing their concerns about malpractices in the medical profession, education, corporatisation of healthcare and other systemic issues afflicting the medical sector at the national level.
“We felt the need to release this manifesto since affordable and quality healthcare, despite being a fundamental right, never gets the attention from political parties it deserves,” said Arun Gadre, a Pune-based gynecologist.