A meeting on the Health Budget for
the year 2013-14 was held on 21st January, 2013 at IMA House. The
following were present:-
Dr
Narendra Saini, Hony Secretary General, IMA; Dr D R Rai, Sr. National Vice
President, IMA; Dr K K Aggarwal, National Vice-President (Elect) IMA; Dr Atul
Arora, Hony. Joint Secretary, IMA; Dr Nipun Choudhury, Apollo Hospital;
Dr Atul Gandotra, Consultant Pharmaceutical; Dr S C Pandey, Central Govt.
Hospital; Dr K K Kalra, NABH; Dr Chander Prakash, Sunder Lal Jain Hospital; Dr
Girdhar Gyani, AHPI; Dr Vijay Aggarwal, PCH; Dr Zainab Zaidi, NABH; Dr B K
Rana, NABH ; Dr Vijay Kohli, DMA; Dr R K Katharya, Hony Joint Secretary, IMA;
Dr R K Gupta, Hony. Joint Secretary, IMACGP; Dr K K Kalra, NABH; Dr B K Rao,
SGRM; Dr M K Singhal, IMA Rohini IMA; Dr Kalra, MS Hedgewar Hospital ; Mr Atul
Gandotra; Dr Himanshu Jain, HRH and Dr M Bakshi, HRH
Basic
issues
1. Food security, primary education,
primary justice and primary healthcare are the minimum requirement of common
man.
2. Health care needs coordinated effort
of all healthcare workers.
3. The benchmark set for the standard health care: accessible, affordable and quality health care.
4. Current situation: Central Budgetary
allocation of health- 0.9% of GDP; State expenditure on health- 5.5% of the
budget; Central funding in the state for public health- 15%; 75-80% out of
pocket expenditure; 70% of patients are managed by private sector and around 15
lakh doctors only 1.5 lakh in Govt.
IMA
Recommendations
Health
care Status
a. Health should be given
infrastructure status and should be notified.
b. No commercial rates for electricity
and water consumption for healthcare sector. It should be flat domestic rate
without any slabs.
c. Upgrade districts hospitals to
medical colleges or super- specialty hospitals.
d. Encourage PPP
e. Incentives for healthcare
infrastructure providers: tax holidays, income tax rebates, provision of cheap
medicine and instruments.
f. Easy Visa for patient who want to
come for treatment from other countries.
Health
budget allocation
a. Increase the budget for the Health
to 2.5 % of GDP as envisaged in National Health Policy 2002.
b. No allocated funds for equipments,
schemes, campaigns, projects should lapse. Accountability should be there.
c. Increased budgetary provisions for:
drugs in govt. hospitals (at present only 15%); non communicable diseases;
disease surveillance; safe drinking water; sanitation; mental health; child and
maternal health; geriatric care; cancer.
d. Separate new fund provisions for
reimbursements of emergency treatment given in private sector; for production
of indigenous drugs, equipments and products.
e. More fund allocation for
telemedicine and mobile units.
f. More fund allocation for new
medical, nursing, dental and paramedical colleges.
g. Generic medicine should be available
freely and their retail price should be properly monitored.
Taxes,
custom Duty
a. Tax rebate on Preventive health
check-up and health insurance at present is Rs.10,000 it should be increased to
Rs. 25,000
b. Zero duty on medical equipments,
drugs and reagents. Govt. get only Rs. 2 24 crore as duty through life saving
equipment which is a meager amount.
c. Research and development should be
given tax rebate. Special incentive should be provided for R & D.
d. No tax should be imposed on
indigenous medicine and equipments.
e. Hospital should not be treated as “commercial
venture” so property tax and land taxes should be charge as normal taxes.
f. Income tax free income for doctors
willing to serve the rural areas.
g. Income tax reliefs for doctors who
document 10% free service in their practice.
2.
Insurance
a. Remove Service Tax on Medical
Insurance.
b. Free insurance for the elderly
c. Soft loans for medical education and
for opening of medical establishment.
d. Micro insurance (low premium for low
income group) must be addressed.
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