The 12th Five Year Plan, with its strong tilt towards private health care, will result in denial of health services to people, claim public health experts. The plan document's chapter on health, drafted recently by the Planning Commission, is yet to be made public. But health experts who have access to the document say that the restructuring of the health care system as envisaged by the Planning Commission would effectively lead to handing over of public health care to the corporate sector.
To prepare the health plan, the Planning Commission had set up a high level expert group (HLEG) to look for an appropriate model that the country could follow. A new model was envisaged as the existing health system has failed to meet the needs of the country; and consequently, health indicators remain poor.
Expert group advice distorted
After a year-long deliberation, HLEG drafted a 343-page roadmap for the country's health care. The Planning Commission says that the draft plan document is based on the recommendations of HLEG, but public health experts say that the recommendations have been taken piecemeal and in many places have been distorted.
| Planning Commission's health care plan
- The plan document suggests that efforts would be made to find a workable way of encouraging cooperation between the public and private sector through contracting of services, and also various forms of PPP
- The new health care delivery system envisaged by the Planning Commission promotes managed care where the private healthcare providers would play a prominent role
- The consumer would be given the choice of where to get treatment, but given that the public health sector is poorly equipped, consumers will be pushed to opt for private health care, say activists
- For providing the services, the private sector would be reimbursed Public health activists see this as the government’s way of providing sops to the private sector at the time of economic recession
- They say the plan document relegates public sector to non-profit work like immunisation, antenatal care and health education in which the private sector is not interested
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Marginal role for public sector
Little money for public health