The draft National Health Policy (NHP) 2015 unveiled on Wednesday envisages a potentially achievable target of raising public health expenditure to 2.5 per cent of the GDP. It, however, maintains that an ambitious expenditure of four to five per cent is needed to meet the current health needs of the country.
It fixes the achievable target on the ground that the “2002 target of 2 per cent was not met.” It also notes that 40 per cent of this would need to come from Central expenditures. At current prices, a target of 2.5 per cent of GDP translates to `3,800 per capita, representing an almost four-fold increase in five years. Thus a longer time frame may be appropriate to even reach this modest target, it adds. The draft policy has been uploaded on the Health Ministry’s website for comments from the public and stakeholders by February 28.
India currently spends 1.04 per cent of GDP on healthcare and a 2012 study by FICCI has estimated that government spending would have to be increased by 3.7 to 4.5 per cent to execute the Government’s mission of Universal health plan. The primary aim of the NHP 2015 is to inform, clarify, strengthen and prioritise the role of the Government in shaping health systems in all its dimensions, investment in health, organisation and financing of healthcare services, prevention of diseases and promotion of good health through cross-sectoral action, as per the draft.
Emphasis will also be given to access to technologies, developing human resources, encouraging medical pluralism, building the knowledge base required for better health, financial protection strategies and regulation and legislation for health.
The policy’s objectives are to improve the people’s health status through concerted policy action in all sectors and expand preventive, promotive, curative, palliative and rehabilitative services provided by the public health sector, according to the draft.
It also aims at a “significant reduction” in out of pocket expenditure due to health care costs and lowering of proportion of households experiencing “catastrophic health expenditures and consequent impoverishment”. It looks to assure “universal availability” of free, comprehensive primary health care services, as an “entitlement”, for all aspects of reproductive, maternal, child and adolescent health and for the most prevalent communicable and non-communicable diseases.
The emphasis on alterative medicine also finds a mention in the draft, which says patients would have access to ‘Ayush’ care providers based on validated local health traditions.