Hyderabad: Dr Kafeel Khan, hailed as a hero in some quarters but arrested in a case involving deaths of several children due to disruption in oxygen supply at a hospital in Gorakhpur in 2017, said the healthcare system needed an overhaul. He demanded an increase in the expenditure on public health, from 1.2 per cent of GDP now to at least 2.5 per cent.
Dr Khan, who is in Hyderabad on a short visit, told mediapersons that the Union Budget had allocated only Rs60,000 crore for health, but Rs3 lakh crore for defe-nce and Rs1.5 lakh crore for the home ministry.
He said India ranked 145th among 195 countries in terms of quality and 103rd out of 119 in the Global Hunger Index. “Fifty per cent of children are malnourished and only 62 per cent are immunised,” he said.
“According to UN reports, 8.02 lakh infant deaths were reported in 2017, while 63,000 children under the age of 15 years died. This means one infant dies in five seconds, mostly of preventable causes,” he said.
Dr Khan said 74 per cent doctors lived in urb-an areas and provide services to only 28 per cent of the population and 81 per cent doctors work in the private sector.
He said a “Healthy India Campaign” has been started by like-minded doctors and organisations in which renowned health activi-sts were supporting the demand for a health policy that provides adequate access to good qu-ality health care services that relieves citizens fr-om financial hardships.
The policy, he stressed, must be for people of all age groups irrespective of caste, religion, region, gender, disability and their socio-economic status. Such health care must be “affordable, adequate, new and acceptable to its citizens while offering free consultation, free drugs, free diagnostics and free emergency care services in all public hospitals.”
He said proposals are being made to call upon the government to cut GST rate from the current 18 per cent to five per cent on health insurance premium in a bid to make it more affordable for the common man.
Other requests in the proposal call for GST exemption for OPD products and drugs for serious ailments such as cancer and diabetes.
