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Post record Covid cases, no major announcements for health sector in Pune
The budget set aside ₹574.03 crore for the health department of which 223.95 crore is capital provision and revenue provision
Though the city was in the grip of Covid-19 for almost a year, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) draft budget for the financial year 2021-22 does not mention any major reforms in the health department. It is the first budget presented by the current commissioner Vikram Kumar who took charge when the city reported record cases of the virus infection. The commissioner did mention about the health policy which would fill in the gaps in the current health budget which is being drafted.
After announcing the budget, Vikram Kumar, PMC commissioner said, “A health policy is being prepared to find the gaps in the health system and improve it. Also, through the medical college, a tertiary care centre would also be started. The college will help 100 residents graduate as doctors each year, besides experts pursuing MD (Doctor of Medicine) and MS (Master of Surgery). We will eventually start a nursing college too. So, it will be wrong to say that there is no focus on health. The policy is expected to be prepared by February end.”
The budget set aside ₹574.03 crore for the health department of which 223.95 crore is capital provision and revenue provision.
Dr Ashish Bharati, PMC health chief said, “The budget allocated for health was around ₹350 crore last year which has been upgraded to ₹570 crore. The health policy is now being drafted and we will decide how to go ahead with this. Due to Covid-19, most of our hospitals were upgraded with ventilators and ICU beds without any planning as per the situation. We spend close to ₹100 crore only on Covid and related infrastructure in 2020-21.”
On Friday, although no major announcements were made, the commissioner reiterated that the PMC’s first medical college Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical College would start admitting students in the coming academic year. He said in his budget speech that the first batch would include 100 students. The budget also mentioned that most of the ongoing financial year, 2020-21, was spent in contact tracing, isolation and treatment of Covid patients and preventing the spread of the infection. The budget also mentions the preparations of beds and ventilators for the treatment of patients in case there is a surge in the numbers due to a second wave.
The commissioner also focused on the health policy which would play a larger role to reform the health infrastructure of the city. However, since its inception, there has been only one meeting along with the stakeholders in the past two months.
Dr Subhash Salunkhe, who chairs the Maharashtra Communicable Diseases Prevention and Control Technical Committee and who would also be the consultant for the policy, said, “The draft has been prepared and hopefully by next month we will have it ready. Before that we will have a meeting with the civic body and put forward the draft to ensure that all their needs are met. This is just the preliminary draft and so it would not be wise to disclose any information, but the draft is for a longer run and it covers the financial and the HR needs of the health infrastructure right from primary, secondary to tertiary care too. The stakeholders would also be included like private hospitals, NGOs and other professional organisations.”
