The Vice President said that rural areas are especially poorly served and that many practitioners in the private sector are actually not qualified doctors. He added regulatory standards are not adequately defined, and in any case, are ineffectively enforced.
Ansari said that these problems are likely to worsen in the future as our large population continues to grow and healthcare costs are expected to increase because, with rising life expectancy, a larger proportion of our population will become vulnerable to chronic Non Communicable Diseases.
He said the government is cognisant of the importance of this issue and the challenges that lie ahead and the Twelfth Plan seeks to strengthen initiatives to expand the reach of healthcare and work towards the long term objective of establishing a system of Universal Health Coverage. He said that efforts would have to be made to find a workable way of encouraging cooperation between the public and private sector in achieving health sector goals.
“Above all, the percentage of health sector related resource allocation would have to be increased to 2.5 per cent by the end of the Twelfth Plan from the current 1.2 per cent. This would need to be accompanied with the availability of skilled human resources,” the Vice President added.
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