May 14, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 8, 1429

ISLAMABAD, May 13: The government is working on an ambitious plan to increase the health spending to four per cent of GDP in a phased manner over four years, with an emphasis on disease prevention and awareness promotion.

“The government will increase health expenditure from the present 0.6 per cent to four per cent of GDP,” Information Minister Sherry Rehman, who also holds the charge of health ministry, said on Tuesday.

Undertaking consultations for formulating a new national health policy at the first meeting of the health policy task force, she said that the increase would enhance the annual allocation from Rs53 billion to Rs300 billion.

The plan is in line with the Vision 2030 prepared by the Planning Commission.

At present, the allocations in terms of GDP are on the decline, falling from 0.8 per cent in 1999 to 0.6 per cent last year.

The task force is reported be of the view that national healthcare programmes should be decentralised and handed over to the provinces, although there were differences on a timeframe for decentralisation because of capacity limitations of some of the provinces.

Criticising the working of the national programmes, Ms Rehman said: “It is most disturbing that the ministry is running a number of vertical programmes, but there is no basic framework to guide and set a direction for the broad areas of the nation’s health management issues.”

The meeting discussed the situation in the health sector, focusing on the poor progress made in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

The working of the task force has been divided along five themes, national health service and governance, health financing, hospital management, medical education and human resources and pharmaceuticals.Sub-groups of the task force were formed at the meeting along the five themes, which would submit their recommendations after one month.