Nothing new for health sector, gets 5.4% allocation

There is nothing new for the already ill-equipped health sector in the National Budget 2022-2023. Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal placed the 51st national budget today where he earmarked around Tk 36,864 crore or 5.4 percent of the total budget.

In the outgoing fiscal, the government allocated Tk 32,731 crore or 5.2 percent of the total budget.

While the overall budget for FY 2022-2023 increased about 14.24 percent, the minister has proposed only a 12.62 percent increase for the health sector, which, according to experts, are related to incremental and inflation related issues.

"This is a typical budgetary allocation for the health sector. Hence, we cannot expect any qualitative change in the healthcare service," Syed Abdul Hamid, a professor of health economics at Dhaka University told The Daily Star.

Meanwhile, the Health Education and Family Welfare Division will see a huge bump with a proposed allocation of Tk 7,582 crore, which was Tk 6,110 crore in the outgoing fiscal.

"The proposed budget highlights an importance on the Health Education and Family Welfare. But we consider the increase for the health service division not satisfactory," said Dr Shafiun Shimul, CDC Foundation fellow at Georgia State University in the USA and an associate professor of health economics at Dhaka University.

The finance minister has proposed Tk 29,282 crore for the health service division for next fiscal while it was Tk 26,165 crore in the outgoing fiscal.