Budget 2022: Hits and misses for healthcare, explains Medanta's Naresh Trehan
Premium- Sitharaman today announced that an open platform, for the National Digital Health Ecosystem will be rolled out
Union Budget 2022: Hours after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented annual budget for 2022-23, Medanta chairman and MD Dr Naresh Trehan said there's very little mention of healthcare. “2-3 things help us - one is the fact that the skilling initiative has been intensified, it's good. We need skilled manpower to assist with the healthcare system," he said as per news agency ANI.
Secondly, he continued, there's a National Health Registry which also provides a full platform for everybody to be able to be in network to know what the state of our infrastructure is, what's the ability to deliver healthcare. “Thirdly, mental health portal - that'll definitely help," he added.
But beyond that, Trehan said, none of the other issues were addressed in this Budget. “The basic thing is that there are 3-4 things that need to be moved forward. We have to be very well prepared for these kinds of events (Covid) happening again. So a robust infrastructure is needed,"Dr Trehan added.
He said there's a need for high-end tertiary care hospitals to deal with pandemics like this. “We need financing at a national priority level because we need to upgrade the services, expand new technologies, also to research so that we can be more dependent on ourselves," Trehan said.
During her budget presentation, Sitharaman announced that an open platform, for the National Digital Health Ecosystem will be rolled out. It will consist of digital registries of health providers and health facilities, unique health identity, consent framework, and universal access to health facilities.
She also announced national tele-mental health programme. The FM said the Covid pandemic has accentuated mental health problems in people of all ages.
“To better the access to quality mental health counselling and care services, a ‘National Tele Mental Health Programme’ will be launched. 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," the finance minister said.
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