The State Budget 2025-26, presented by the Finance Minister K.N. Balagopal in the Assembly on Friday has nothing to write home about, as far as the health sector is concerned.
Apart from a reiteration of various ongoing projects, regular allocations to health sector institutions/projects and several paragraphs devoted to how Kerala has been giving free medical treatment to the maximum number of people through Karunya Arogya Suraksha Padhati (KASP), the only new announcement for the health sector was that a comprehensive scheme would be evolved for the health and security of senior citizens by converging relevant projects of Health, Social Justice and LSGI departments.
The government will ensure palliative care, medicines, food and health care for all bed-ridden chronically ill senior citizens, who are registered in the palliative care grid, something which had been announced weeks ago.
Mr. Balagopal added that for a nominal fee, senior citizens would also be provided permanent caregivers, diet service, and AI-based surveillance. A sum of ₹5.4 crore was set aside for the proposed palliative care grid.
At the same time, the government will focus on healthy ageing projects for the senior citizens who are not bedridden, for which ₹50 crore was allocated.
The total outlay earmarked for the health sector was ₹10,431.73 crore, of which public health was allocated ₹2,915 crore and the Medical Education sector, ₹532.84 crore.
The Finance Minister made an allocation of ₹700 crore for KASP for the current year, however, there was no mention on how the State government intended to pay off the more than ₹1,000 crore it owed hospitals by way of reimbursement for free treatment given.
The announcement that funds were being allocated for setting up more cath labs and dialysis units in public sector hospitals across the State has been met with much derision because the Health department has been unable to run even the existing cath labs round the clock because of the acute shortage of human resources.
Not just specialists, there are not enough ECG and dialysis technicians or ICU-trained nurses in the Health Services. The Cath labs and dialysis units are all run by temporary staff posted by respective hospital management committees — most of which are now drained of funds because of the non-payment of KASP arrears by the Government.
In fact, the recent CAG report on health sector performance had pointed out that the acute deficiency of manpower in public hospitals was affecting the quality of healthcare delivered and that it was overburdening the existing resources. Yet the Budget makes no mention of this HR crisis in the health sector nor does it make any provision for allowing more human resources for health.
An amount of ₹23.30 crore has been earmarked for improving the basic facilities for early cancer detection and treatment and ₹22 crore has been set apart from the Plan share of RCC for providing advanced care and services for women and children ailing with cancer.
Mr. Balagopal said that the Government intended to enact a legislation to nourish and preserve the knowledge and treatment methods of indigenous/traditional medicine sector and that eventually, an Institute of Kerala Indigenous/Traditional Medicine would be set up. A sum of ₹1 crore was allocated for the preliminary work on this.
Published – February 07, 2025 07:16 pm IST