Dr B S Ajaikumar, Executive Chairman, Healthcare Global Enterprises explains why this Budget’s announcement of setting up 200 cancer daycare centres across districts is fraught with risk
The custom duty exemption on life-saving drugs and medicines is a move in the right direction; however the provisions need to be studied in detail to gauge the exact impact.
There was a strong need to include Linear accelerators and other critical equipment in the list of custom duty exemptions along with X-ray tubes and Flat panel detectors used in medical X-ray machines but the government has disappointed us once again.
Ideally, the government must encourage efficient private hospitals to manage cancer care across the country. It can gainfully play the role of a monitoring agency to incentivise the efficient hospitals and penalise the errant and suspect players.
But it seems to be thinking in the wrong direction, of taking on even more responsibility as a cancer care provider, when it already carries the burden of running ill-equipped and staff-deprived government hospitals in both rural and urban centers.
This budget’s announcement of setting up 200 cancer daycare centres across districts is a case in point.
It may seem like a far-reaching initiative, but it is fraught with risks. How is the government going to ensure the recruitment of competent doctors, nurses and support staff to manage these centres? What is the plan in place to ensure that patients would avail of timely and quality care?
Cancer is a complex disease which is evolving by the day. It merits deep study and ceaseless research to develop targeted therapies through proper assessment of the immunologic status and genomic aspects of each cancer case. Cancer care can’t be rolled out like a normal day care center.
The allocations to healthcare continue to fall short of addressing sectoral needs and priorities, and they are minuscule when compared to defence and other priority sectors.
Rather than promote medical tourism and inviting private hospitals to collaborate in the effort, the government should institutionalise a robust universal care model and urge private industrialists to contribute to the corpus.
Only a full fledged universal care can bring in uniformity of treatment through the cross subsidy model, thereby lessening the financial strain and eliminating the debt traps for the common people of the country. We see nothing announced in this direction, in budget after budget.
- Advertisement -