Health Budget 2023: Govt Prioritises Medical Education And Research, Aims To Eliminate Sickle Cell Anaemia

Health Budget 2023: The Union Budget 2023 presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman prioritised medical education and promotion of research in pharma sector.

The Union Budget 2023 presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday prioritised medical education and setting up of nursing colleges. Sitharaman also said the government would come up with a programme to eliminate sickle cell anaemia by 2047.

"A mission to eliminate sickle cell anaemia by 2047 will be launched. It will entail awareness creation, universal screening of seven crore people in the age group of 0-40 years in affected tribal areas and counselling through collaborative efforts of central ministries and state governments," Sitharaman said.

Sitharaman also announced the establishment of 157 new nursing colleges to improve the nurse-patient ratio. "157 new nursing colleges will be established in co-locations with the existing 157 medical colleges established since 2014," she said.

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The Finance Minister also said facilities in select Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) laboratories would be made available for research by public and private medical college faculty members and private sector research and development teams to encourage collaborative work.

The government will also come up with a new programme to promote research and innovation in pharma through centres of excellence.

"New programme to promote research and innovation in pharmaceuticals to be taken up through centres of excellence, industry to also be encouraged to invest in research and development in priority areas," Sitharaman said.

The domestic pharma industry had demanded that the Budget should help fuel innovation and R&D, which in turn will set the pace for propelling the pharmaceutical industry.

In the last Budget, the government allocated around Rs 86,200 crore to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), a 16.5 per cent increase over the previous year. 

The Economic Survey 2023 tabled by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Parliament on Tuesday showed that the central and state governments' budgeted expenditure in the health sector reached 2.1 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022-23. The revised estimate the year before was 2.2 per cent of the GDP.

In comparison, just 1.6 per cent of the GDP was spent by the Centre and state governments on healthcare in 2020-21 (FY21)

The National Health Policy, 2017, envisages increasing the government's health expenditure to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2025.

Moreover, the share of government's health expenditure in total health outlay has increased from 28.6 per cent in FY14 to 40.6 per cent in FY19, the Economic Survey revealed.

The out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) as a share of total health expenditure has come down to 48.2 per cent in FY19 from 64.2 per cent in FY14 as per the report.

The survey report also showed the share of expenditure on health in the total expenditure on social services has increased from 21 per cent in FY19 to 26 per cent in FY23 (BE).