India Health Progress (IHP), a call for action group with the objective of providing a health policy platform for its stakeholders to voice their concerns over the lack of accessibility to healthcare, informed that lack of allocation and proper management of fund to develop infrastructure for the healthcare sector is a major concern that needs to be addressed urgently. IHP stressed that the government should take initiatives to ensure that the funds that are allocated are duly invested for the development of infrastructure as well as for creating awareness on proper healthcare needs of the country.

With an aim to focus on developing proper infrastructure which is a major concern for healthcare providers across India, IHP had proposed to the Government to increase its fund allocation for healthcare in the 12th Five Year Plan of 2012-17. Through this demand IHP wanted the government to focus on developing the healthcare scenario in the country by building up infrastructural facilities suitable for good healthcare so that it can be accessible to everyone.

Interestingly, conceding to the demands made by healthcare groups, the government has affirmed that healthcare is major concern area that needs to be looked at pro-actively with no constraint on funds in the area of health in the 12th Five Year Plan. Ranga Iyer, healthcare consultant and advisor to IHP informed that they are very happy with this pro-active stance taken by the government on increasing the allocation of funds from 1.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent for healthcare in the five year plan.

“Affordable accessibility to healthcare is a basic right of every individual of this country, thus steps should be taken to ensure that applicability of the same. Today the main issue that is affecting the industry is lack of proper infrastructure, which is resulting in non accessibility of quality healthcare to patients who actually need it. Steps should be taken to ensure that the funds that are allotted are put into use properly to create awareness among the general public on healthcare needs,” he said.

Iyer pointed out that the government should ensure a proper plan so that these funds are utilised in an organised manner so that it can be put into use effectively. “Apart from funds proper management is also essential for ensuring effective implementation of these successful progressive plans. The Jan Aushadhi Scheme was a brilliant scheme introduced by the government which however could not have that everlasting impact because it was not handled properly so steps should be taken to ensure that these mistakes should not be repeated again. At the same time, we are happy that the Government is taking some steps to revive the scheme and put it back on track,” Iyer informed.

At present, IHP is spearheading lot of projects that is aimed at focusing ways to develop platform that will ensure accessibility to basic healthcare facilities and medicines available to all. It is led by various individuals and organisations that can directly or indirectly play a role to ensure access to healthcare in India. IHP’s advisory board involves various groups --- public as well as private --- to raise awareness levels among all concerned.