The National Health Policy 2015 has been long overdue for India and it is good to see it in the public domain. The policy proposes to kickstart many new initiatives in the healthcare sector including Universal Health coverage. However it sets no direction on how these new initiatives are going to be funded, said Vishal Bali, chairman, Medwell Ventures.

In 2014-2015, India’s budget allocation for healthcare was less than $5 billion. But the country’s obligation towards Universal Health Coverage itself requires funds to the tune of $24 billion over the next four years and once fully implemented to ensure its continuity, the government will need to set aside an annualised budget of $11 billion. This is a big shift and needs a strong execution plan, he added.

“The healthcare sector deserves the undivided attention of the government and deserves to be given infrastructure status. The demand-supply gap both on new infrastructure and talent continues to widen. Unless a strong reform push is given to the sector, for all its potential of development, India will continue to lag behind other countries on its core health indicators,” Bali told Pharmabiz in a telecon.

While giving a push to public healthcare activities, the policy undermines the role of the private sector which plays a dominant role in GDP spend on healthcare. The private sector has driven healthcare forward in India and needs to be given adequate support to continue that path, he pointed out.

The National Health Policy was much awaited since its implementation is supposed to bring in an acceleration of healthcare delivery both in urban and rural India to address the accessibility gap. With the rise of lifestyle and metabolic diseases, India is likely to lose its demographic dividend to early onset of diseases which the country cannot afford. Therefore, the government needs to increase the  spend on healthcare and not remain complacent, noted Bali.

The present reality is that India continues to be one of the countries with the lowest public healthcare spending of 1% of its GDP compared to the  private healthcare spending of 4%.  “The government allocation is abysmally low for a country of this size and relevance to the world,” he observed.

Since budget 2015-16 is expected to be reformative on an overall basis, the sector is hopeful that it will deliver the same agenda on healthcare. Fundamentally, the National Health Policy 2015 does not provide any directional change. While there is an indication to double the healthcare budget allocation to 2% of GDP, the path to that change is not demonstrated in the policy document. The government  has been indicating for many years about its intention to increase the GDP spend on healthcare to 2%.  

However, nothing has happened in this regard in previous budgets. The budget promises to be an inflection point for the future therefore it needs to set the path towards the 2% of GDP public spend on healthcare.  Thus a minimal increase of five basis point increase to 1.5% should be seen in the Budget 2015-16. This could indicate the positive intentions of government in giving a booster shot to this sector.

In so far as the National Health Policy 2015 is concerned, its proof will only be demonstrated through its effective execution and implementation, said Bali.