The Hindu : Meet of State Health Ministers proposed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 05, 2002

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Meet of State Health Ministers proposed

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI May 4 . The Union Health Ministry has proposed convening of a meeting of State Health Ministers to work out the modalities for the effective implementation of the new national health policy, cleared by the Union Cabinet recently. The Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, would chair the meeting.

This was announced here by the Union Health Minister, C.P. Thakur, on Friday.

A major highlight of the new policy is that it envisages a massive infusion of public investment in the health sector.

Currently, the Government sector, both the Centre and States put together, account for only 17.3 per cent of the country's total expenditure on the health sector, with the balance being met by `out-of-pocket' expenditure by individual households. In China, on the other hand, public sector expenditure on health was of the order of 24.9 per cent, while in Sri Lanka it was 45.4 per cent, in U.K. 96.9 per cent and in the U.S. 44.1 per cent. While the Centre would bear the bulk of the increase — it was proposed to raise the Centre's contribution to 25 per cent from the existing 15 per cent — the new policy expects the States to increase their health sector expenditure to seven per cent of their budget by 2005 and eight per cent by 2010. The current figure is 5.5 per cent.

The other components of the policy, where the States have to play a greater role, include a proposal to make rural posting mandatory for fresh medical graduates before they were even given their degrees and a proposal to expand the pool of medical practitioners by including a cadre of licentiates of medical practice, by bringing practitioners of ayurveda and other indigenous systems of medicine into the mainstream and by utilising the services of nurses and other paramedical staff in certain prescribed functional areas adjunct to their current functions.

This was proposed to be on the lines of the services rendered by nurse practitioners in several developed countries.

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