2009

Report of National Health Bill 2009

The Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) has demanded increase in the budgetary allocation on health to meet the health needs of all the people of the country. A deputation of the organisation will meet the Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee soon in this connection. This was the view point that emerged at a National Consultation on National Health Bill 2009 which has been circulated by the ministry of Health and Family Welfare Govt. of India for public opinion held at India International Centre, New Delhi on 31st May 2009, and also on National Health Policy 2002. It is a serious matter that even after 62 years of independence and with one of the fastest growing economy, our country is having infant and maternal mortality rates of 56 and 540 respectively which is worse than even Bangladesh. Whereas there is need to have a minimum of 3% public health expenditure on health the present expenditure is just 1.8% which had fallen to 0.7% during NDA regime. This needs to be increased to provide bare minimum health needs of the people. More over the health needs can not be seen in isolation from the needs of food, housing, water, education and sanitation. Therefore to meet the health needs of the society all these have to be met with. It was felt that whereas the bill has some positive overtones it falls short in taking care of the safeguards for the health providers. It was decided to form a core group which will formulate the amendments to the bill in the light of discussion on the issue of rights of user and health provider, and submit these to the Union Health Minister and demand passage of the bill in the Parliament soon with amendments suggested by the IDPD. State level seminars will be held in the next few months involving other health organisations and social groups to build public opinion on the bill. The consultation was attended by doctors and medical students from Punjab, Delhi, Bihar, Tamilnadu, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Manipur.

The session was chaired by Dr Livtar Singh Chawla, President IDPD and founder Vice Chancellor Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, Punjab. Dr Shakeel ur Rahman Secretary IDPD gave a presentation on National Health Bill and Dr Tejbir Singh, Professor of Community Medicine, Govt. Medical College Amritsar on National Helath Policy 2002. Shri Gurminder Singh Advocate Punjab and Haryana High Court Chanidgarh and Shri Anshul Raj, Advocate Supreme Court of India gave presentations on the legal aspects of the bill. Prominent among those who attended the meet are Dr A S Padda, Principal Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences, Jalandhar, Dr G P I, Principal Adesh Meidcla College Bathinda, Dr Pratibha Worlikar, Prof and Head Department of Pharmacology, D Y Patil Medical Colleg Pune, Dr M Nara Singh from Manipur, Mrs Amarjeet Kaur, Secretary AITUC, DrSubhash Chakraborty from West Bengal, Dr Ravindranath from Chennai and Dr Usha Shrivastva from Delhi.