The Indian Medical Association (IMA) came out with the press release on 8th May, where it criticized the Ministry of Health, saying that they were “astonished to see the extreme lethargy and inappropriate actions” regarding the nation-wide crisis that has been caused by the 2nd wave of coronavirus pandemic.
The press release said that the “collective consciousness, proactive cognizance and the requests made by IMA were put in the dustbin” and decisions so far have been taken while ignoring the ground realities.
Here are a few highlights of the press release by the IMA:
In the last 20 days, the IMA has been insisting on the need of a complete, well-planned preannounced national lockdown rather than just a few states doing it. The Centre has refused and now cases have crossed 4 lakh/day with moderate to severe cases being almost 40%.
IMA had requested vaccination for everyone above the age of 18 years on April 6. Furthermore, the IMA has called out the Ministry of Health for not making a necessary roadmap and ensuring vaccine stock, because of which the vaccine couldn’t be rolled out in many places on May 1.
The IMA also raised questions over the differential pricing of the vaccines and quoted examples of 1997 and 2014 when India eradicated smallpox and polio, which was through universal free vaccination only and not through a differential pricing system. The IMA hinted that one factor contributing to shortage of vaccine is also the differential pricing system because it has left the states to negotiate with private distributors.
The IMA asks that when Rs 35,000 Crore is allocated in the budget for the vaccines, which can easily purchase the maximum required 200 crore vaccines, why is the government shedding its responsibility?
Oxygen Crisis: The IMA acknowledged that people are dying due to mismatch of Oxygen supply and the distribution of it. The Press Release quoted that “even after 15 days of the crisis, the government isn’t seen at the forefront of the issues and the people are left to knock the doors of courts for justice”. The release further said that healthcare professionals are neither consulted nor the Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has had the time to interact with modern medicine professional organizations to tackle the issue.
The IMA has appealed that the crisis be solved on War Footing.
The release said that IMA had suggested enhanced testing & tracing to study the mutant of the virus, but the testing and tracing is only decreasing.
The release stated that 756 doctors were lost to the first wave, while 146 doctors have passed away in the short period of the second wave. The IMA also pointed out how deaths aren’t being reported and questioned why that is the case. The IMA feels that with actual numbers the seriousness to adopt COVID protocols will only rise.
The IMA also pointed out how the production of drugs didn’t increase and how the government neither capped the price nor removed the GST to address the issue of hoarding or black marketing.
The IMA demanded that the entire healthcare administration shall be revamped with Indian Medical Service (IMS) cadets who are well versed with the technical and administrative skill for effective execution of healthcare.
The IMA requested that the healthcare budget be increased from 1% of GDP to 8-10% of GDP.
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India's "public" spending on healthcare is around 1% of the GDP and has remained so forever now. It is a very sad state of affairs where the % of GDP spent has risen from similar levels to 6% to 10% in other emerging Asian countries but no Government in India ever considered increasing it.
Even the National Health Policy 2017 document called for this increase. Sadly, ignored. India has one of the lowest doctors and hospitals ratio.. we need to work bottoms up, every distrcit to have a minimum number of doctors and hospital beds. Corruption remains another issue. Many Government doctors take salary but don't visit hospitals and are busy running their own practice.