Except for the mental health sector where the plan to set up a National Tele-Mental Health programme in India has been proposed, the Union Budget 2022-23 presented by the Government on Tuesday does not have much in store for other major sectors of health services like National Health Mission or medical device industry.
Presenting the Budget for 2022-23, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the pandemic has accentuated mental health problems in people of all ages, hence the tele mental health programme will be launched to improve access to quality mental health counselling and care services.
Sitharaman said the programme will include a network of 23 tele-mental health centres of excellence, with NIMHANS being the nodal centre and International Institute of InformationTechnology-Bangalore (IIITB) providing technology support.
She also said that an open platform for the National Digital Health Ecosystem will be rolled out. “It will consist of digital registries of health providers and health facilities, unique health identity, consent framework, and universal access to health facilities,” she said. Additionally she said that 95% of 112 aspirational districts had made significant progress in health and other parameters and that efforts would now be made to work on districts that were lagging.
However, healthcare experts have expressed mixed reactions to the Budget pointing out that other services have been neglected. They felt that the Government should have focused more on primary healthcare investment and made the healthcare system as' National Priority’ status to insulate it from future Covid like crises.
K. Sujatha Rao, former secretary, Health Ministry, expressed her disappointment at the budget saying that “A disappointing budget for health and education”.