The year that went by was filled with reports of poor quality infrastructure in medical establishments. Then, there were multiple instances in which doctors were ‘pointed a finger at’ for not showing enthusiasm for rural practice. These and other issues that the Indian doctors face could in one way or the other be traced to poor governmental attention on the issues.

Hopefully, the upcoming Union Budget could remedy them, at least to an extent.

Here then are the things that the Budget ought to have to make the doctors’ lives better.

Higher budget allocation for health

This has been an earnest wish among the medical fraternity and the public at large for a long time. But for some reason, the wish feels more like a pipe-dream what with governments after successive governments failing to see that this crucial sector demands a better budget allocation. The allocation has come up to 1.3% of GDP from 0.9%. But that’s still not where we should be.

Hopefully, this budget would bring up the percentage substantially.

Bridging the urban rural divide

By the time a doctor finishes PG, s/he is probably married and has a family of their own. This makes accepting a rural position highly impractical.

Though more number of doctors work in urban regions, it’s still hard to attract talent to the rural regions in the absence of strong incentives. Simply having a better allocation for health wouldn’t solve the issue. For you require better roads, better access to schools and other education facilities for the doctors’ children etc. for this to happen. In other words, unless investment in rural infrastructure goes high, you cannot expect a significant change in the current scenario.

Another factor is the pay that’s given to doctors who work in rural areas which is not at all competitive. In nations including Australia and the US, rural doctors, in fact get paid better than their urban counterparts. Emulating such a move might alleviate the situation to some extent.

Education

Almost every government medical teaching facility in the nation suffers inadequacy of both equipment and manpower.
A focus on allocation for continuous updating of skills and knowledge would be welcome from a Budget. The skill updating is relevant not just for doctors but nurses and paramedical workers as well. For better medical teaching, government hospitals and medical colleges should have better equipment and well- trained doctors. Not just that, the incentives should be in place for retaining such doctors.

As for more manpower, it’s not just for providing healthcare services but also for analytics and administration that a higher number would be needed.

Recent reports like the one about students in AIIMS, Bhopal practicing operating on dummies because of poor infrastructure undermines the people’s belief in the nation’s healthcare professionals.

Costs

One of the major costs that gets transferred to the patient is that of medical equipment and implants. Most of these are manufactured abroad. If the budget proposes a good incentive for manufacturing these devices in India, it could bring down the cost burden on the people.

Though the government announced in the previous budget that government pharmacies would be opened so that the public could access cheaper drugs, the effect of the move has been minimal.

Also, though the Indian pharmaceuticals industry is a big player in the generics business, they still lag in terms of drug discovery. The budget should have provisions to encourage the companies to increase their research efforts
.
Image credits: abplive.in

   Send article as PDF