Hon. Chairman Sir, I come from Kerala, which is a model State regarding the health matters. Sir, I do not want to politicize this issue. My hon. friend Mr. Sinha made his speech and left the House. He only politicized this matter, and actually there was no need to bring in political formulations. I congratulate Prof. Jha for bringing this Private Member’s Bill. If education can be brought as a Fundamental Right, there is no harm in bringing health, which is a cardinal subject. Though it is part of the right to life, health needs to be given the importance100 that it deserves. The biggest problem is resources. Our hon. Minister is a very straightforward Minister. He is very genuine.120 He wants to do something. We know that. But he is unable to do because of lack of resources. I140 will not blame him individually. The only thing is that he has to speak up. He has to tell the160 leadership that more allocation has to be given to the health sector. Sir, thousands of people died without getting access to health. Even those people who got access to hospitals, died because there was no oxygen. I do not want200 to remind the House of those days.
Sir,
the Ruling Party Member was very elaborate with regard to the
improvements that have happened to the health sector. Sir, let me just read
out one statistic. There was a briefing by240 the External
Affairs Minister for the leaders of all parties with regard to Sri Lanka.
Sir, with regard to health, I would just point out one index. We have 1.4
hospital beds per thousand patients against the world280 average of 2.9. Sri
Lanka has three hospital beds per thousand patients. We talk about Sri
Lanka.300
There are sectors where we lag behind. We need to have more
focus, more resources. Sir, if at all you320 want to improve this, you should have
at least two beds per thousand patients. For that, we need to open at least
5,000 more hospitals with 200 beds. Do we have the resources? Sir, there
has been a360 lot of talk about PMJAY. Mr. Sinha was
kind enough to give us a lecture on that. Sir, what has happened to the
allocation? The allocation has been drastically reduced. Even the allotted
amount has not been spent.400 Let the Minister check the Economic
Survey. Let him just go through the 15th Finance Commission Report.
I only want420
the Minister to go through some documents. Let him just go to the Economic
Survey, the National Family Health Survey, the 15th Finance Commission Report, and
the Standing Committee Report. If he puts together these four documents, that
will give the real picture of the health.
My
honourable friend from Aam Admi Party has been harping on the
Mohalla Clinic here, and480 his leader has been coming to Kerala to
lecture us. Sir, 60 years back, we started these Primary Health Centres.500
There is a health centre in every village. This is something to guide and give
inputs to the Minister. The biggest problem in this country is that 70
per cent of our people depend on the private sector; only 30 per cent go
to the Government sector. It is just the other way round in
Kerala. In Kerala, 80 per560 cent of the health needs are catered to
by the Government sector and just 20 per cent by the private sector. There is one
more thing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 95 per cent of the COVID-19 patients600
were treated free of cost by the Government sector in Kerala. Just five
per cent of them went to the private sector. Sir, let us not grope in
the dark. I would like to make one more point here. When640 compared to the
previous Revised Estimates, there has been hardly a 0.2 per cent
increase despite the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic which took the lives
of 50 lakh people. There was a health emergency in the country. But what
was the increase in the health budget? It was just 0.2 per cent.
There is one700 more point. When they talk about the budgetary
allocation on health, just look at how they mop up the resources.720
They are mopping up a huge amount of approximately Rs. 54,000 crore because of
the four per cent cess that they are imposing on Income Tax and Corporation Tax.
They are not allocating money, but they have imposed a cess on Income
Tax and Corporation Tax. They have imposed another cess on import duty. Even
then, they did not do any justice to the health sector. Sir, I would just wind
up my speech in a few minutes.800 The Finance Commission says that 14 per
cent of the people borrow money to go to the hospitals. Every year, six crore
people are plunged into poverty because they approach hospitals for their
health needs. It is a shame on840 this country. We have to think
about this. We are pushing people to poverty. They have nowhere to go to fulfil
their health needs. We must consider this as a Fundamental Right. I would earnestly
invite the hon. Minister to visit Kerala and see what we have done.
Hon.
Chairman Sir, first of all, I thank Prof. Jha
for having900
brought up this subject. He has brought up not just the subject of
health, but also the voices, the anguish, and the pain of the poor and
the middle-class people who suffer because of lack of quality healthcare. Mrs.
Rajni just mentioned what she had to undergo in an emergency despite being a
Member of Parliament. I think, we have960 something to learn from what she spoke
here. Even I have introduced a Bill in this House called 'The Universal980
Healthcare Bill, 2021'. As mentioned by many Members here, Article
21 says that the right to life1000 includes the right to health.
But, I think, we need to make a distinction here. We need to provide more
emphasis to the right to health because without that, the entire country is
suffering. If the country has to enjoy real wealth, it has to be in good
mental and physical health. The population of a nation can be productive only
if its individuals are physically and mentally healthy. The only place where
you have to live is your body.1080 So, it should be taken care of. Unfortunately,
the current healthcare system in India reflects an economic and a social1100
gap in accessing quality healthcare and draws attention to further measures
that are required to be taken by the Central1120 Government to assure
health to all its citizens. Just as the Right to Education Act was passed
for providing free and compulsory education to all the children of
the country, a Bill on the right to health must be brought in the House.
If this Bill is not accepted, the Government must come in with the Bill
providing free healthcare to all the citizens of India. Several hon. Members
have already mentioned that the expenditure on health is only1200
1.4 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product. My hon. Friend Dr. Rao said that
it should be at least six per cent. I agree with him that we need to
increase the expenditure on health. Unless it is done, we cannot provide
the huge population of India the relief from health problems that they go
through. The out-of-pocket1260 payments are the predominant mode for
financing healthcare in the country. It should not be there when
70 per cent1280
of our population is below poverty line. Our subsidy itself indicates how poor
our country is. Here, out-of-pocket expenses1300 are so high that we
need to really think about it. This is grossly unfair and exposes a large
number of households to catastrophic health expenditure which has
been a major factor for rural and urban debt, as mentioned by my
colleagues. We have also spoken about the pandemic here. The
pandemic has exposed many gaps. Many of us have spoken about the way it was
handled, but I would like to speak about certain acts of nobility, acts of
human service, and acts of sacrifice. There were many people who came forward
to do that. At the same time,1400 there were terrible acts of
exploitation of poor patients or rich patients by the hospitals during that
time. What was happening was that people were dying and their economic resources
were spent on these hospitals and the future generations also1440
suffered because the complete economy of the household collapsed during the
times of pandemic. We must pay attention to this because we cannot allow a
country to be ruined. Whenever there is a time of emergency, hospitals come in
to exploit people. I think there has to be an end to this by the Government.
This can be done by a collaborative approach, aligning the
existing Government schemes, the interest of the payers and the service providers,
along with innovative partnerships. We have the Ayushman Bharat Scheme.
Presently, it is only for in-patient and there is no out-patient
coverage. The primary healthcare must be included here. There is one
more lacuna in the system towards which I would like to draw the attention
of the Minister. In the hospital, when a patient is being treated and
the family member goes to ask the doctor what is wrong with the patient,
the doctor gives no answer. The family member does not know1600
what is happening to the patient, what the diagnosis is, or what kind of
treatment is being given to the patient.
