admin
Union Budget 2022 : Reaction by Prominent Personalities
India
healthysoch
New Delhi, February 01, 2022:
Under Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, an open platform for the National Digital Health Ecosystem will be rolled out and it will consist of digital registries of health providers and health facilities, unique health identity, consent framework, and universal access to health facilities.
The Finance Minister said, as the pandemic has accentuated mental health problems in people of all ages, a ‘National Tele Mental Health Programme’ will be launched for better access to quality mental health counselling and care services. This will include a network of 23 tele-mental health centres of excellence, with NIMHANS being the nodal centre and International Institute of Information Technology-Bangalore (IIITB) providing technology support.
Post Budget Reaction by Dr Prathap C Reddy, Chairman Apollo Hospitals Group
“During the pandemic, we saw an immense contribution of start-ups to innovation in healthcare and the extension of the tax benefits for another year should encourage more start-ups in the healthtech space to come up and invest in R&D especially in the field of AI powered smart wearables and predictive healthcare. This will in turn be invaluable in strengthening our fight against non-communicable diseases, which can otherwise derail the economic recovery by impacting our productive demographic.
“The budget keeps us on track on enabling universal health accessibility with the proposed National Digital Health Ecosystem. With digital registries of health providers and health facilities, unique health identity for each individual, this will help in providing universal access to health facilities. Along with the national tele-mental health program, this shows the enhanced focus on health. At Apollo Hospitals, we look forward to contributing to the success of these path-breaking initiatives along with rest of the private sector healthcare.”
“A bold budget that lays down a 25-year roadmap for India to become a truly digital economy. The announcement regarding establishment of the National Digital Health Ecosystem is significant. It will make the health sector much more efficient and bring it into the modern age. Mental health has emerged as a silent epidemic in the last few years. Setting up a national tele mental health program to provide counselling and support to patients fulfills an urgent, long-felt need of an overlooked health challenge. Upgrading two lakh anganwadis with better infrastructure will have a positive effect on child health. There is no significant increase in budgetary allocation to health for FY 22-23, which is a bit disappointing considering how the Indian healthcare system struggled to meet the challenge of the epidemic. However, all in all, it is a very well thought out budget that will have a positive impact on the digital and health infrastructure of the country.”
Budget reaction : Dr. GSK Velu, Chairman & Managing Director, Trivitron Healthcare and Neuberg Diagnostics
As expected, Budget 22-23 was a balanced effort to improve overall economic growth. Today, the healthcare sector in India is at a much stronger position than ever before. Measures introduced in Budget 2022-23 will further strengthen the healthcare sector while focusing on prevailing challenges.
The rollout of a National Digital Health Ecosystem will ensure that all segments of the society are able to access affordable and adequate healthcare in a seamless and efficient manner. Such an ecosystem can potentially make universal healthcare a reality for India.
Further, the fact that mental health counselling and care services found a place in the budget is a testament to how far we have come as a country. Inarguably, the Covid pandemic has adversely affected the mental health of the population at large. Thus, the launch of a National Tele Mental Health program can play a catalytic role in both normalising conversations around mental health as well as ensuring that people are able to seek support for mental health related challenges.
Though there was not much for the medical devices industry directly in the Budget, the industry will benefit from the Government’s increased focus on healthcare. The National healthcare mission outlay has been kept at ~37,000 crores like previous year and this is a bit disappointing, considering the fact our healthcare infrastructure needs big boost in the coming years. The demand from all healthcare experts was to increase healthcare outlay in the current budget.
As a health and medical device manufacturing MSME Start Up, we welcome the increased focus on employability, e-skilling, employment generation in the MSME sector with an allocation of nearly Rs 2 lac crore for MSME Sector. The fact that there is an emphasis to create nearly 60 lakh jobs.
Dr Anand Bansal, Medical Director at Action Group of Hospitals said, “Amid COVID 19 pandemic the sudden and unprecedented changes the world had to go through, this budget was keenly awaited especially for the announcements in regards to the health sector. Apart from physical, mental health is also a majorly affected area during pandemic. Addressing the need of the hour the implementation of a national tele-mental health program, which will have tech-support from IIT Bangalore,will give an momentum to mental health issues as the pandemic has accentuated problems of stress and depression in the people. This would undoubtedly improve access to high-quality mental health counselling and treatment services. Also, an open platform for the National Digital Health Ecosystem will be rolled out and it’ll further help in strengthening the healthcare services within the country, still our health sector needs more expenditure and infrastructure development. As per health concerns this budget is satisfactory and full of vision, considering the challenges our healthcare is facing, things will surely need time to reflect results on a larger scale”.
