scholarly journals Health Sector Allocationin India’s Budget (2021–2022): A Trick or Treat?

Author(s):  
Mrigesh Bhatia ◽  
D. P. Singh

The Finance Minister of India Nirmala Sitharaman announced the Budget in February 2021, giving health and well-being as a top priority for the government, with an impressive increase of 137% over the previous year’s health sector budget. The need to strengthen primary, secondary and tertiary public healthcare systems was a clear message from the budget statement. The authors analyse the current budget in the context of chronic underinvestment in health and question whether this allocation will make any meaningful impact on the public health infrastructure as the impressive headline allocation appears to be more of a trick than a treat to the health sector.

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Marcelo Korc ◽  
Fred Hauchman

This paper highlights the important leadership role of the public health sector, working with other governmental sectors and nongovernmental entities, to advance environmental public health in Latin America and the Caribbean toward the achievement of 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 3: Health and Well-Being. The most pressing current and future environmental public health threats are discussed, followed by a brief review of major historical and current international and regional efforts to address these concerns. The paper concludes with a discussion of three major components of a regional environmental public health agenda that responsible parties can undertake to make significant progress toward ensuring the health and well-being of all people throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.


Significance The fiscal deficit is projected to be 9.5% of GDP in 2020/21 -- compared with a budgeted 3.5% -- narrowing to 6.8% in 2021/22 and 4.5% by 2025/26. The government is counting on increased tax revenue and receipts from divestment to help it stick to this fiscal ‘glide path’. Impacts Increased spending on health and well-being should at least create more jobs in the public health system. Delhi will count on a return to high levels of GDP growth to help reduce the government debt-to-GDP ratio. The government may find it difficult to realise its goal of pushing through privatisation of Air India within the first half of 2021/22.


Author(s):  
Zahid Nazir Padder

India’s health sector is vast and it is present on every corner of the country. Rural India’s health infrastructure majorly rely on Government Sponsored Health and Well being centers. Most of the medical diagnosis equipment are sophisticated in nature and requires high quality of electricity. But these center often experience power outage and poor quality of power, which creates a challenges for diagnosis and treatment of patients On the other hand these areas received good amount of sun shine and these challenges can be eliminate by putting Solar PV with adequate storage battery. The present study aims to find out the feasibility of such scheme with its optimal size.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Redwanur Rahman

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that triggered the privatisation of Bangladesh’s health sector. Design/methodology/approach This study follows systematic reviews in its undertaking and is based on an extensive review of both published and unpublished documents. Different search engines and databases were used to collect the materials. The study takes into account of various research publications, journal articles, government reports, policy and planning documents, relevant press reports/articles, and reports and discussion papers from the World Health Organization, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Findings While Bangladesh’s healthcare sector has undergone an increasing trend towards privatisation, this move has limited benefits on the overall improvement in the health of the people of Bangladesh. The public sector should remain vital, and the government must remobilise it to provide better provision of healthcare. Research limitations/implications The paper focusses only on the public policy aspect of privatisation in healthcare of a country. Practical implications The paper examines the issue of privatisation of healthcare and concludes that privatisation not only makes services more expensive, but also diminishes equity and accountability in the provision of services. The study, first, makes a spate of observations on improving public healthcare resources, which can be of value to key decision makers and stakeholders in the healthcare sector. It also discourages the move towards private sector interventions. Originality/value This study is an independent explanation of a country’s healthcare system. Lesson learned from this study could also be used for developing public policy in similar socio-economic contexts.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samira Davalbhakta ◽  
Supriya Sharma ◽  
Shefali Gupta ◽  
Vishwesh Agarwal ◽  
Gaurav Pandey ◽  
...  

AbstractBackgroundThe private medical sector is a resource that must be estimated for efficient inclusion into public healthcare during pandemics.MethodsA survey was conducted among private healthcare workers to ascertain their views on the potential resources that can be accessed from the private sector and methods to do the same.ResultsThere were 213 respondents, 80% of them being doctors. Nearly half (47.4%) felt that the contribution from the private medical sector has been suboptimal. Areas suggested for improved contributions by the private sector related to patient care (71.8%) and provision of equipment (62.4%), with fewer expectations (39.9%) on the research front. Another area of deemed support was maintaining continuity of care for non-COVID patients using virtual consultation services (77.4%), tele-consultation being the preferred option (60%). 58.2% felt that the Government had not involved the private sector adequately; and 45.1% felt they should be part of policy-making.ConclusionA streamlined pathway to facilitate the private sector to join hands with the public sector for a national cause is the need of the hour. Through our study, we have identified gaps in the current contribution by the private sector and identified areas in which they could contribute, by their own admission.


2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siddu V H ◽  
Keshava Murthy K D ◽  
R Revankar

Karnataka is closer to the average of India in case of health status and health facilities, but compared to the states like Kerala, it stands too low. The most striking problem, related to the health infrastructure and health status arises out of the regional imbalance. The study shows that the Gulbarga and Belgaum divisions of Karnataka show a poor status in health infrastructure and health status. Among these, the Gulbarga division (means Hyderabad Karnataka) lies in the lower position. It is well known that Hyderabad Karnataka is underdeveloped in most of the sectors compared to the rest of the regions. Lesser health infrastructure facilities in this region clearly indicate the neglect of the government intervention/ interest to develop basic infrastructure facilities in this region. For better health, health facilities should be improved. For better health facilities, public health expenditure is very important. At present, the Karnataka government is spending very less amount of money on health, which is about 2 per cent of the NSDP. This amount has to be increased. Increasing the public expenditure alone, cannot serve the purpose, unless it is properly used for delivering quality infrastructure and good service mechanization.Keywords: Health Sector, Health Infrastructure.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Mohammed Mustapha Namadi

Corruption is pervasive in Nigeria at all levels. Thus, despite recent gains in healthcare provision, the health sector faces numerous corruption related challenges. This study aims at examining areas of corruption in the health sector with specific focus on its types and nature. A sample size of 480 respondents aged 18 years and above was drawn from the eight Metropolitan Local Government Areas of Kano State, using the multistage sampling technique. The results revealed evidence of corrupt practices including those related to unnecessary-absenteeism, diversion of patients from the public health facilities to the private sector, diverting money meant for the purchase of equipment, fuel and diesel, bribery, stealing of medications, fraud, misappropriation of medications and unjustifiable reimbursement claims. In order to resolve the problem of corrupt practices in the healthcare sector, the study recommended the need for enforcement of appropriate code of ethics guiding the conduct of the health professionals, adoption of anti-corruption strategies, and strengthening the government monitoring system to check corruption in public health sector in order to ensure equitable access to healthcare services among the under-privileged people in the society.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3671
Author(s):  
Jameel R. Al-Obaidi ◽  
Khalid H. Alobaidi ◽  
Bilal Salim Al-Taie ◽  
David Hong-Sheng Wee ◽  
Hasnain Hussain ◽  
...  

Nutraceuticals are a category of products more often associated with food but having pharmaceuticals property and characteristics. However, there is still no internationally accepted concept of these food-pharmaceutical properties, and their interpretation can differ from country to country. Nutraceuticals are used as part of dietary supplements in most countries. They can be phytochemicals which are biologically active and have health benefits. These can be supplied as a supplement and/or as a functional food to the customer. For human health and longevity, these materials are likely to play a vital role. Consumption of these items is typical without a therapeutic prescription and/or supervision by the vast majority of the public. The development of nutraceuticals can be achieved through many bioresources and organisms. This review article will discuss the current research on nutraceuticals from different biological sources and their potential use as an agent for improving human health and well-being, as well as the gaps and future perspective of research related to nutraceutical development.


2021 ◽  
Vol 111 (S3) ◽  
pp. S224-S231
Author(s):  
Lan N. Đoàn ◽  
Stella K. Chong ◽  
Supriya Misra ◽  
Simona C. Kwon ◽  
Stella S. Yi

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the many broken fragments of US health care and social service systems, reinforcing extant health and socioeconomic inequities faced by structurally marginalized immigrant communities. Throughout the pandemic, even during the most critical period of rising cases in different epicenters, immigrants continued to work in high-risk-exposure environments while simultaneously having less access to health care and economic relief and facing discrimination. We describe systemic factors that have adversely affected low-income immigrants, including limiting their work opportunities to essential jobs, living in substandard housing conditions that do not allow for social distancing or space to safely isolate from others in the household, and policies that discourage access to public resources that are available to them or that make resources completely inaccessible. We demonstrate that the current public health infrastructure has not improved health care access or linkages to necessary services, treatments, or culturally competent health care providers, and we provide suggestions for how the Public Health 3.0 framework could advance this. We recommend the following strategies to improve the Public Health 3.0 public health infrastructure and mitigate widening disparities: (1) address the social determinants of health, (2) broaden engagement with stakeholders across multiple sectors, and (3) develop appropriate tools and technologies. (Am J Public Health. 2021;111(S3):S224–S231. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306433 )


Significance Electricity companies wanted a near-38% rise amid soaring international market prices, but the ERC wanted to avoid a price shock. In November, the government declared an ‘energy crisis’ at the ERC’s request, thanks to reduced domestic electricity supply and the global market situation, and extended it in December for six months. Impacts Investment in infrastructure and technologies should contribute to economic growth and create jobs. Care will have to be taken that closing established mines and power plants do not depress economies locally and raise unemployment. Rising domestic utility prices will inflict political damage on a fragile government. Phasing out coal will improve air quality and population health and well-being, with knock-ons for healthcare priorities and spending.


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