Govt health policies to blame for mishaps like Kota: IMA

By Sfoorti Mishra

New Delhi, Jan 3 (SocialNews.XYZ) First in Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, then in Muzaffarpur in Bihar and now in Kota Rajasthan, hundreds of children have died an untimely death. The statistics of child mortality in the country raise serious questions over the intentions of both Centre and state government for not prioritising children's health.

Reports say that JK Lon Hospital in Kota was not well equipped with necessary facilities like incubators and was stuggling with shortage of staff.

The politicians keep giving absurd comments and shrugging off responsibility. IANS tried to find out what may be the possible interventions that may provide improved policy formation. Here is what Indian Medical Association has to say about incidents like Kota.

Dr Santanu Sen, President of Indian Medical Association holds the government policies responsible for such unfortunate incidents. Speaking with IANS on Friday, he said that lesser budgetary allocations, improper implementation of recruitment policies of the government and wrong health schemes are prime reasons for mishaps like these.

He said "Health is a constitutional and birth right of every Indian. It is a state chapter. But unfortunately there is not much budgetary allocation for health. In a country having a population of 130 crore you only have 1.1 per cent of the entire GDP for health whereas it should be four to five per cent. On such a small budget you cannot expect to develop infrastructure in the entire country. Until and unless the infrastructure is radically developed, these types of infant mortality and child deaths will occur repeatedly."

He added "Moreover there are so many unemployed doctors in the country but the government projects shortage of medical practitioners. If they can be employed properly, every Indian can get health care."

Dr Sen criticised the government's Ayushman Bharat scheme and said, "People of India want assured health policy and not an insured health policy. There are many hospitals in the country where patients have to buy even small things like syringes. Therefore, the government should bring a uniform universal health policy instead of schemes like Ayushman Bharat so that health policies don't vary from state to state.

"The government, instead of giving money to the government hospitals, is giving money to third party i.e. insurance agencies. Why? First they should provide money and infrastructure to their own hospitals. They say they provide insurance to 50 crore people but how do they decide who needs this service and what about the rest of the 80 crore population?"

Source: IANS