With health funds unused, 24%-38% shortfall in medicines, medical staff

There is a 24%-38% shortfall in the availability of medical personnel at primary health centres, sub-centres, and community health centres in 28 states/union territories of India, according to the latest audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India.

In the first part of this series on the CAG’s assessment of the National Health Mission (NHM), we looked at issues of financial management. In this concluding part, we detail the lack of physical infrastructure and human resources at public health facilities.

The survey found that 73% of sub-centres were more than 3 km from the remotest village, 28% were not accessible by public transport and 17% were unhygienic. In 24 states, instances of non-availability of essential drugs were observed. In eight of these states, essential medicines/ consumables such as vitamin-A, contraceptive pills, oral rehydration solution (ORS) packets and essential obstetric kits were not available at select health facilities.

NHM, launched in 2005, is India’s largest health programme aimed at providing universal access to healthcare. It passes on funds to state health societies to strengthen local health systems, institutions and capabilities. But, as we reported in the first part of the series, states are not utilising these funds optimally and there has been a 29% rise in the balance left with states in the five years leading to 2016. The results of this are visible in the infrastructure and human resource gaps across health facilities in India.

Policybazaar.com to enter healthcare space; to offer online consultation

ETechAces Marketing and Consulting Pvt. Ltd., which owns India's leading insurtech brand, PolicyBazaar.com and India's leading lending marketplace, PaisaBazaar.com, is now foraying into the healthcare tech and service space. As part of its plans to capture the out of pocket healthcare market in India estimated at nearly $100 billion, the new venture will provide free online and over the phone medical consultations, to begin with. It aims to provide 1 million free medical consultations by March 2019 and reach the scale of 5 million by March 2020. 

Given that social security support on healthcare services front is either very limited or difficult to access for the general public, the venture aims to redefine the way India seeks quality medical services, just like its parent company has done it for the insurance segment. "Our vision is to change customer behaviour in the healthcare space by making the consumer shift to online medical consultation from offline by building an easy to use, convenient and trustworthy solution. We believe that healthcare space has huge potential to disrupt, and can follow the same growth trajectory as the digital insurance space which initially faced a similar kind of consumer inertia that this space faces," said Yashish Dahiya, Co-founder and CEO, PolicyBazaar Group of Companies.

It's not me, it's Berkshire: Buffett says his firm's name will outlast him

If a major company needs capital or a private firm wants to sell, Warren Buffett’s checkbook is often the one they seek out.

Will that stay the case when it’s someone else’s signature?

That was the question from several Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shareholders at the firm’s annual meeting Saturday, adding a fresh angle to the topic of succession for the 87-year-old chairman. Berkshire’s desire to utilize a cash pile that has grown to more than $100 billion makes finding large-scale deals a key issue for whoever will be the conglomerate’s next leader.

Buffett downplayed any unique skill he has to drum up deals, using his inability to find recent ones as evidence. Berkshire often makes large investments in times of panic, when its stable capital, and not the Buffett name, is the allure, he argued.

“The reputation belongs to Berkshire now,” Buffett said at the meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. “We are the first call and will continue to be the first call.”
Charlie Munger, Buffett’s 94-year-old vice chairman, said already most acquisitions are coming from the chiefs of the company’s operating subsidiaries, not he and Buffett.

Fortis row: Regulator who said hospitals inflated drug prices transferred

On March 1, 2018, Bhupendra Singh, the head of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) with a year of his tenure left, was transferred to the National Authority for Chemical Weapons Convention, sparking protests from pro-access activists. They alleged that an “industry and hospital lobby”–mainly large multinational pharmaceutical companies and corporate hospitals–was behind the transfer.

The NPPA is the government agency responsible for setting prices of drugs and ensuring drug availability. Singh had been at its helm since 2016, and under his watch, the prices of cardiac stents were slashed by upto 80% last year.

Wall Street flat as oil offsets gains in tech, healthcare

US stocks were little changed on Wednesday, with the three major indexes on track to end the month higher, as gains in healthcare and technology were outweighed by a drop in energy shares due to a steep fall in oil prices.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite looked set to post their best monthly percentage gain since February. The Nasdaq also hit a record intraday high in early trading.

Oil prices fell by more than 2 per cent to a three-week low, as rising Libyan production fueled concerns that OPEC-led output cuts are being undermined by several countries that are excluded from the deal.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq snapped their seven-day winning streak on Tuesday as weakness in the energy and financial sectors outweighed gains in technology shares.

With stocks at record levels and the earnings season in the rear-view mirror, analysts say investors need to see strong economic data and progress on President Donald Trump's pro-business policies for further meaningful gains.

"We had the Memorial day weekend and volumes on Tuesday were low, so this is the first day that Wall Street is coming back in full force and we could see a resumption of strong equity buying that we saw last week," said Andre Bakhos, managing director at Janlyn Capital in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

At 9:41 a.m. ET (1341 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.23 points, or 0.01 percent, at 21,028.24, the S&P 500 was up 1.97 points, or 0.08 percent, at 2,414.88 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 10.98 points, or 0.18 percent, at 6,214.17.

Seven of the 11 major S&P sectors were higher, with the healthcare index's 0.48 percent rise leading the advancers.

Johnson and Johnson was up 0.67 percent and provided the biggest boost to the S&P and the Dow.

While first-quarter economic data was mixed, with dips in consumer spending and sentiment, continuing strength in the labor market suggests economic activity will regain momentum as the year progresses.

The Federal Reserve issues its Beige Book at 2 p.m. ET (1800 GMT), a compendium of anecdotes on the health of the economy, that will likely provide further evidence that the economy continues to strengthen giving the Federal Reserve impetus to raise rate next month.

Traders currently see an 86.6-percent chance of a quarter-point rate hike at the Fed's June meeting, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Shares of Michael Kors fell 8.9 percent to $33 after the luxury fashion retailer gave a bleak full-year forecast and said it would shut more than 100 full-price retail stores in the next two years.

Mallinckrodt was up 0.6 percent at $43.94, after sources said the drugmaker is exploring a sale of its generic drug unit, in a deal that could fetch as much as $2 billion.

Analog Devices rose 4.7 percent to $88.75 after the chipmaker's quarterly results came in above expectations.

Exact Sciences was up 9.3 percent at $35.58 after two brokerages raised their price target on the diagnostic test maker's shares.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,371 to 1,186, for a 1.16-to-1 ratio on the upside. On the Nasdaq, 1,221 issues rose and 1,007 fell for a 1.21-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.

The S&P 500 index showed 28 new 52-week highs and 11 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 82 new highs and 70 new lows.
READ MORE