While hailing the government’s proposal to accelerate vaccination plans for girls in the age group of 9 to 14 years for the prevention of cervical cancer and bringing the ASHA and aganwadi staff workers under the ambit of the Ayushmaan scheme, stakeholders have lamented that mental health and medical device sectors have been ignored.
They explained that the Interim Budget presented on Thursday by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman lacks focus on mental health and the rising cost of medical devices.
Dr Jyoti Kapoor, Founder and Director, Manasthali Wellness said that while various provisions like strengthening the primary healthcare facilities were welcome moves, as mental health experts, we are disappointed that nothing much has been announced for strengthening mental health.”
She said that the sector had expected that mental illness would be included in the Ayushman Bharat scheme to increase accessibility to treatment for financially disadvantaged populations. We also wished that insurance policies and schemes cover mental illnesses to improve affordability.
Experts noted that the need to address mental health is urgent as approximately 15 crore Indians require mental health care services, and there is a stark shortage of professionals, only 0.3 psychiatrists, 0.07 psychologists, and 0.07 social workers per 100,000 people.
Jyotsna Govil, Chairperson- Indian Cancer Society, Delhi Branch had a point when she said that the allocation for health has increased, as compared with last year, however, “we wish it had been much more, particularly the allocation to cancer. We have a young population who need education about cancer and about how lifestyle impacts it, and it is very important that the budget allocates funds towards awareness and prevention.”
With increased awareness, the numbers for treatment will automatically come down and create an economic benefit both to the person and the nation, she added. Those from the medical device industry were also not very satisfied with the budget as they rued that it failed to focus on the rising cost of medical devices.
“The budget has fallen short of expectations for addressing the rising import graph of medical devices and soaring import bills worth over Rs 63,200 crore ($8 billion),” said Rajiv Nath, Forum Coordinator, Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AiMeD).
“We do hope to see in the fine print action on the assurances from various government departments to implement the National Medical Devices Policy 2023 and make it attractive and profitable to make in India rather than import into India,” Nath said.
As per GTRI report of August 2023, the Indian medical devices industry can expand from USD12 billion to USD 50 billion by 2030, reducing import reliance to 35 per cent and boosting exports to USD18 billion.
Nath noted that supporting policies are needed so that the industry can make quality healthcare accessible and affordable for the common masses. This will also help aim to place India among the top five medical devices manufacturing hubs worldwide and help end the 80-85 per cent import dependence forced upon us and an ever-increasing import bill of over 63,200 crore,” he said.
