Small Budget Means No Free Healthcare

Despite strong lobbying to encourage the government to give 10% of the national budget to the health sector, the recent budget has allocated only 6.5%.  As a result the Ministry of Health and Population says it can only implement pre-existing activities, and has little to spare for free healthcare services to be extended to district hospitals. Resource mobilization will be a big challenge for the coming year.

Civil Society Demands Free Healthcare: key role for the IHP+?

On the 21^st July the Minister for Health and Population chaired the second Nepal Health Sector Program Formulation Steering Committee. The meeting discussed the process, outputs and timeline of Second Nepal Health Sector Program (2010-2015). Representing Civil Society in Nepal, I asked that the new government “effectively implement a Free Health Services Programme as planned to realize the constitutional provision of healthcare as a fundamental right”, and stressed the crucial role of the IHP+ process in the overall programme formulation.

New Developments

Mr. Friedeger Stierle, Programme Manager of GTZ and chair of External Development Partners expressed the possibilities of exploring resources from external development partners considering the very low budget allocation.  In my role as convener of the thematic group Engagement of Non-State Sector, I will be preparing a report after a series of consultations with our members over the next few weeks.