Total budget for health ministry is going to balloon by 40% next year compared to this fiscal as government has responded to growing demands for larger health allocations during coronavirus pandemic.
In the next health budget, allocation reaches Tk 27,850 crore up by Tk 7,905 crore from last fiscal year’s Tk 19,273 crore, placing ministry at five top in terms of budgetary allocations despite mismanagement in expenditure of funds.
Next fiscal health sector allowance will be 5% of total budget outlay while 0.74% of total GDP, according to the document which was finalised at a meeting of the Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the first week of this month.
Of the outlay, the health ministry is likely to spend 53.20% of revenue expenditure that includes salaries and allowance and bonus of doctors and nurse along with establishment costs.
An official of finance division said the major problem of the frigid health ministry that budget funds have not utilised to end of the fiscal year.
There is an acute crisis of ICU equipment including ventilators in coronavirus pandemic but Tk 300 crore funds lie idle, the official said.
The official also said they have no plan regarding the recruitment of doctors and nurses. In last September, Directorate General of Health Services recruited doctors but now it seeks funds, official said.
The official said health ministry should put an allocation to stop mismanagement and corruption because we see more corruption stories in newspapers.
According to the finance division, the DGHS has recurred 2,000 doctors and 5,054 nurses to meet the emergency demand of state to tackle the coronavirus crisis.
The doctors were recruited from the waiting list of 8,107 applicants who passed 39th BCS, while the nurses will be recruited from the waiting list of senior staff nurse recruitment examinations held recently, said a statement of Public Service Commission.
More doctors will be recruited from that doctors’ panel next fiscal year. The government has allocated Tk 500 crore salaries and allowance for new doctors and nurses.
Besides, the government has allocated Tk 850 crore for compensation and allowances for doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, police and armed forces engaged in treatment and management of coronavirus patients.
Of the money going to the health development, Tk 4,282 crore would come from the external sources. The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have each approved $100 million to aid the government to meet the growing expenditure in the sector. Besides, ADB and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank also provided Tk 250 crore each to finance for the health sector. Three development projects will be taken with a cost of Tk 3,200 crore.
Next fiscal year, some Tk 13,033 crore has been allocated for the health sector with an increase of 28.92% next fiscal year, the highest amongst the 12 sectors in the Annual Development Programme. More fund will be allocated for research and development of the sector.
The healthcare system is underdeveloped and underfunded, with only 9.9 doctors, nurses and midwives and 8.8 hospital beds per 10,000 people, while current healthcare expenditure is only 2.4 per cent of GDP, said the Asian Development Bank recently.
Talking to economist and former finance adviser to past caretaker government Dr AB Mirza Azizul Islam said no one looks into the matter how health ministry has used budgetary allocation; as a result, services to people become worse.
Heath sector will not perform efficiently within a short time if more budgetary funds are allocated for that sector, he said.
Center for Policy Dialogue said the people are spending 70% of their own fund for their different health issues. The think tank urges the government to prepare a policy so that people reduce spending own money on their treatment instead depend more upon public healthcare facilities, it said.
Janaswasthya Sangram Parishad Convenor Dr Faiezul Hakim said the last forty years of corruption and irregularities have exposed the health sector during the deadly coronavirus pandemic. Every plan of the health ministry is sure to fail unless the authorities concerned listen to doctors and patients, he said.
