THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The health experts slammed the budget for its lack of vision in tackling major challenges being faced by the state even when the government gloated over an increase in health expenditure allocation by nearly Rs 200 crore.
This year the budget allocation for the sector crossed Rs 3000 crore. However, most of the major allocations are for routine activities such as improving infrastructure.
Finance Minister K N Balagopal did raise curiosity on the possibilities of developing indigenous vaccines using the facilities of the Institute of Advanced Virology, Thiruvananthapuram, which is yet to be fully functional.
He also gave Rs 30 crore allocation to the medical tourism sector. Apart from these, experts did not see a clear direction from the budget. “First and foremost there is no substantial increase in outlay as they claim. The budget lacks a gross direction in any of the major projects on public health, health tourism, tackling communicable diseases etc.
We do not know when the next pandemic will come. Maybe in 5 or 10 years. However the budget has no long-term public health agenda,” said IMA state president Sulphi Noohu. IMA had demanded a four-fold increase in health expenditure to tackle a host of issues faced by the health sector, such as new viral infections, non-communicable diseases and obesity among children.