Low priority: ‘Health allocation betrays govt claims’

A major chunk has been allocated for the Health Insurance Card Scheme.

LAHORE:

There has been no major increase in the budget for the sector this year. The budget for the health sector in 2014-2015 is Rs70.75 billion, an increase of Rs6 billion from the previous year, Rs64 billion.

Of the total budget, Rs45.99 billion has been allocated for current expenditures that include utilities, bills, salaries and other services; Rs24.57 billion has been allocated for development. Last year, the same, Rs45.99 billion, was allocated for current expenditures and Rs17bn as development budget for health and family planning services. This year, a major chunk of the development budget – Rs4 billion – has been allocated for the Health Insurance Card Scheme and Rs2 billion for various programmes including the Punjab Health Sector Reform Programme.

The budget includes Rs500 million for the Population Welfare Programme. The government has also allocated Rs7.64 billion for ongoing schemes under the development budget and Rs3.94 billion for new schemes, a total of Rs11.59 billion. There are 129 ongoing schemes and 102 new schemes mentioned in the budget. There are 13 new schemes covering preventive and primary health care, 46 in the Accelerated Programme for Health Care, 32 in tertiary care hospitals category, four in medical education, two in research and development and five in population welfare.

Young Doctors’ Association Pakistan president Dr Salman Kazmi said that the budget amounted to peanuts compared to health sector needs. He said the budget had not been increased even in line with inflation. “At least six percent of the GDP should be allocated for health,” he said. The health budget for each person in the province amounts to Rs300.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 14^th, 2014.