Health Budget 2023: From new 157 colleges to eradicating sickle cell – Govt puts Medical Education and Resarch at the forefront

Health Budget 2023: The 2023 Union Budget presented by Nirmala Sitharaman, the Finance Minister, on Wednesday, emphasized medical education and the establishment of nursing colleges. The Minister also declared the government’s goal to eradicate sickle cell anaemia by 2047 and revealed plans to establish 157 new nursing colleges to enhance the nurse-patient ratio.

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Medical promises in the Budget 2023-24

Sitharaman announced that select Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) labs will be made accessible for research by public and private medical college faculty and private sector R&D teams to foster collaboration. Additionally, the government intends to establish new initiatives to advance research and innovation in pharmaceuticals through centers of excellence.

Nirmala Sitharaman statedthat, “A mission to eliminate sickle cell anaemia by 2047 will be launched. It will entail awareness creation, universal screening of seven crore people in the age group of 0-40 years in affected tribal areas and counselling through collaborative efforts of central ministries and state governments.” She also added, “157 new nursing colleges will be established in co-locations with the existing 157 medical colleges established since 2014.”

In order to promote collaboration, the Finance Minister said that facilities in a few ICMR laboratories will be made accessible to faculty members from public and private medical colleges as well as teams from the private sector engaged in research and development.

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Government to invest in Research & Development

The government will also develop a brand-new programme to support centres of excellence for pharmaceutical research and innovation. The domestic pharmaceutical sector has asked that the Budget should support R&D and innovation, which will in turn set the pace for advancing the pharmaceutical industry.

In the most recent Budget, the government increased its funding for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) by 16.5% to around Rs 86,200 crore. The state and central governments’ budgeted expenditure in the health sector reached 2.1% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022–2023, according to the Economic Survey 2023, which was presented to the Parliament on Tuesday by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

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