100m people to be vaccinated against virus till June 2022

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has proposed an allocation of Rs21.72 billion for the health sector under Public Sector Development Programme for fiscal year 2021-22 for 20 ongoing schemes and 26 new schemes.

However, Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin announced that the government was allocating US$1.1b for import of COVID-19 vaccine to vaccinate at least 100 million people in the country by June 2022.

In his budgetary speech, referring to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) health insurance programme, the minister said the government would extend further support to the provinces on universal health coverage schemes, though he did not elaborate much on it.

According to the minister, the health insurance programme in KPK had changed the lives of people belonging to low-income groups.

The minister talked much about the impact of ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan, but the budgetary allocations made for the year 2021-22 did not show any allocations revolutionising the health infrastructure in Pakistan.

He, however, said the government had proposed two per cent cut on import duty on 300 pharmaceutical ingredients, while a cut on tax on import of disposable syringes had also been proposed.

Despite coronavirus pandemic in the country, the government announced nothing significant for transfer of technology, particularly for pharmaceutical industry. Instead, it announced budgetary allocations for import of COVID-19 related medicines and equipment including vaccine.

In its first budget, for the fiscal year 2019-20, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government proposed an allocation of Rs13.376 billion for health sector, for FY 2020-21, Rs14.508 billion were allocated under PSDP when COVID-19 hit the country and for fiscal year, 2021-22, the government has announced Rs21.72 billion for health schemes.

If compared with the previous governments, Rs25.034 billion were allocated for health sector under PSDP for fiscal year 2018-19, Rs48.701 billion for fiscal year 2017-18, Rs24.951 billion for year 2016-17, Rs24.951 billion for the year 2015-16, Rs20.70 billion for the fiscal year 2015-16, Rs26.814 billion for 2014-15 and Rs25.739 billion for the fiscal year 2013-14.

According to budget estimates 2021-22, a total of Rs28.352 billion would be spent on health affairs and services. The government has allocated Rs23.982 billion for hospital services, Rs3.489 billion for health administration while Rs849 million for public health services and only Rs31 million for medical products, appliances and equipment.

According to many health experts, the federal government should have extended its support to the provinces to improve services at the healthcare facilities so that the poor patients could have treatment facilities according to the standard protocols.

Experts believe that the provision of ‘Sehat Card’ to every citizen of Pakistan alone may not help improve the healthcare infrastructure in Pakistan and it can not change the miserable conditions of healthcare facilities particularly operating in remote areas of the country.