Health Policy and Legislation

Tamil Nadu is recognised for its achievements in human development, especially in the area of healthcare. In light of the central government’s recent move to launch insurance-based targeted healthcare provision, a case is made for paying attention to building public health infrastructure based on Tamil Nadu’s experience with healthcare provisioning. The pitfalls of insurance-based provisioning and targeting, and the need to recognise regional trajectories and institutional innovations in this regard are highlighted.

The status of the Health Management Information System in Bihar is presented and the reasons affecting the quality of data at different levels, from the health sub-centre to the state level, are examined. The quality of HMIS data is poor because of inadequate primary records, data duplication, and other process errors.

The Indian intellectual property regime has often met with severe criticism from the United States as India strives to balance the need to provide affordable healthcare with a thriving market for a competitive pharmaceutical industry. In this context, the nexus between compulsory licensing, competition law and patent law merits a closer examination and it is debatable whether a strong competition law framework is indeed the way forward.

The National Health Policy, 2017 reflects the perfunctory attitude towards public health, so deeply entrenched among the mandarins of the health ministry. The policy paves the way for the contraction of public healthcare systems, thereby reducing the government’s involvement in the delivery of health services, and facilitates the dominance of the private sector in curative care. However, in the absence of a robust public healthcare system, the goal of achieving “healthcare for all” becomes even more onerous.