Healthcare’s slice gets smaller

People may not get any respite from increased healthcare cost as the share of the budget allocation for the health sector has been reduced for next fiscal compared to that of the outgoing year.

Experts fear that it will be tough to ensure necessary services and medicine supply to public hospitals with an insignificant rise in allocation in the health sector.

The health and family welfare ministry has got the allocation of Tk 38,052 crore in the proposed budget, around 5 percent of the total figure amounting to Tk 7,61,785 crore.

In the outgoing fiscal, the health sector got Tk 36,863 crore, which was 5.4 percent of the total budget.

While the proposed budget sees a 12.34 percent rise from the outgoing budget of Tk 6,78,064 crore, the health sector has got only a 3.22 percent increase from the outgoing budget of Tk 36,863 crore.

"There is no [significant] rise in the health budget. So, healthcare will become costlier in the days to come, as costs of medicine and other logistics have already increased significantly," Dr Be-nazir Ahmed, former director of Disease Control Unit at the health directorate, told The Daily Star yesterday.

Like the previous fiscal years, the health sector's allocation is distributed between the Health Services Division, responsible for ensuring healthcare services to people, and the Medical Education and Family Welfare Division, responsible for health education and family planning services.

Of the total health budget, Tk 29,431 crore has been allocated for the Health Services Division, which is only a Tk 150 crore increase compared to the outgoing fiscal's allocation of Tk 29,281 crore.

Of the amount, this division is going to receive an allocation of Tk 17,221 crore for operation costs, upTk 3,791 crore from the outgoing fiscal.

But the allocation for development cost has dropped significantly to Tk 12,210 crore from Tk 15,851 crore in the outgoing fiscal.

"The increase in the Health Services Division budget is too insignificant. This will hamper healthcare servicesand the supply of medicine to public hospitals," said Syed Abdul Hamid, a professor of health economics at Dhaka University.

Meanwhile, the allocation for the health ministry's Medical Education and Family Welfare Division has increased by Tk 1,039 crore to Tk 8,621 crore. It was Tk 7,582 crore in the outgoing fiscal.

According to the budget speech, this allocation will contribute to the establishment of new medical universities and medical colleges in addition to health education and family planning services.

Meanwhile, 100 raw materials to produce medicine for tuberculosis, malaria, cancer and diabetes will get VAT exemption facility at production level. So, prices of these medicine may decrease.