‘Govt spent `996 per capita on health’

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government spent Rs 996 per capita on public health in 2017-18, which is much lower compared to the national average (Rs 1,538), and other so called less developed states like Chhattisgarh (Rs 1,671) and Telangana (Rs 1,801) claims an NGO, Jan Aarogya Abhiyan. 

The NGO also mentioned that high number of deaths of children in district hospitals like Nashik, are symptomatic of Maharashtra’s public health system crisis due largely to low budget allocations and inadequate expenditure.  

 The NGO mentioned that it had conducted an exercise on developing a people’s health budget for 2018-19. 

Talking to The Asian Age, Dr Abhijit More, health activist and co-convenor, Jan Arogya Abhiyan, said, “The current state medicine budget in public health services is Rs 471 crore for 

FY 2017-18.” He also said that, “If Maharashtra wants to ensure full availability of medicines in all public health facilities, then the state may need to spend the medicine budget as per Rajasthan (Rs 65 per capita), in this situation total cost for medicines in Maharashtra would be Rs 728 crore.”

Giving suggestions on the ongoing budget problems, Dr More said,  “Still additionally, Rs 257 crores will be required to provide adequate free medicines through public health facilities across Maharashtra.”

However, the state health department denied that there was a scarcity of funds. An official said, “Under the central scheme of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM ) this year, Rs 2093 crores was available under this programme.” The official also mentioned that Maharashtra is utilising the available funds for essential and effective implementation of public health care services such as 104 ambulances, human milk banks and still many health post coming in tribal belts and counter parts of Maharashtra.