tiol Health Policy draft anti-people, promotes privatisation'

Kolkata, March 10: Slamming the draft of the tiol Health Policy 2015 as “anti-people”, a tiol socio-medical voluntary organisation on Tuesday accused the central government of promoting “privatisation, commercialisation and commodification” of health in India. Representatives of the Medical Service Centre termed the draft of the policy put up by the health and family welfare ministry as one “assisting the private industry to sustain and thrive”. According to the ministry, however, the policy is designed to provide clarity on the most critical health care issues and immediate policy priorities. “By giving extraordiry weightage on the private health care sector for ensuring secondary and tertiary care, the government is assisting private industry to sustain and thrive.”

“In the first and second tiol Health Policies of 1983 and 2002, we observed invitation and encouragement to private sector. Now, with this draft policy, the full circle of privatisation, commercialisation and commodification of health will be complete,” Bijn Kumar Bera, general secretary of the organisation said at a media meet here.

Bera said the Centre has declared to grant a maximum allocation of a paltry 2.5 percent of the GDP on the health sector as against the five percent that was laid down in the WHO and UN guidelines for developing countries.(IANS)