Policy experts strongly feel that the government needs to broaden its scope and change its approach while drafting its new healthcare policy for the country, by including all stakeholders in the whole process rather than just the bureaucrats for inclusive growth. They fear that failing which the new healthcare policy will turn out to be just a mere imitation of the already existing healthcare policy.
This glaring observation comes in view of the ongoing efforts by the union health ministry to draft the new healthcare policy, which has already begun in the centre with hardly any consultation from the broad range of stakeholders. It is understood that the health ministry had recently sent explicit direction to sub committees asking them to submit a detailed 20 page report on select 58 topics dealing with healthcare policy to be submitted within a stipulated time.
A highly placed source informed that apart from the fact that the whole process is not only outdated and hackneyed, even some of the topics that are covered for deliberation and examination hardly fall under important category. In fact the source pointed out that the agenda has been prepared by bureaucrats having little know-how on this subject.
“What is disturbing is that some of the key topics that need urgent attention with respect to India's healthcare needs are missing from this list. It is quite evident that whoever decided to prepare the agenda hardly had any in-depth knowledge of the healthcare scenario of the country. Moreover, how do anyone justify 20 page report on each of the topic, rather than focusing on topical issues the list just puts together some random issues for compilation. What we need is a radical change in the current health care policy as there are lot of grey areas in the same. We need to first analyse and understand the loopholes and prepare an agenda that are issue based. We really hope that the government will in time understand the gravity of this issue and take corrective measure to not repeat what the UPA government had done,” the source added.
Experts feel that alienating them from the thought process at the initial stage can turn into a huge liability for the government in the long run as it will hardly have any takers in the final run to which will further delay and impact clearing of the healthcare policy and needs of the country.