This is being done by offering them space and profits in public hospitals, permitting private contracts of non-clinical services and investigations, and outsourcing services. Quoting from the Qureshi Committee Report, the report gives the example of Apollo Hospital which got 15 acres of prime land in 1988 for a token rent of one rupee per annum on condition that it would provide free treatment to one third of its patients. The hospital also got Rs 42 crores from the Delhi government which it was commissioned in 1996, it said..India today allocates less to health than Bangladesh, Nepal and Thailand. Brazil and South Africa have already reached levels over 3 per cent of the GDP, while Western countries allocate 6 per cent and above to their health sectors. Calling the government's attention to raise the allocation for the health sector to achieve the 3 per cent of GDP target for health, as promised in the National Common Minimum Programme, the report raised concern over the district health sector reform projects taken up by the World Bank. "While the Bank invested heavily, the resources were selectively allocated....to items with high foreign exchange value..," it said. The report revealed that the 10th five-year plan and the draft approach paper to the 11th plan have further emphasised the need for promoting health tourism to earn foreign exchange and facilitate public-private partnerships. The privatisation services has given a handle to the World Trade Organisation to demand that the health sector be treated like any other "trade" or "business" and not be given any privileges due to social services, noted Imrana Qadeer, who has written the section on Status of Health Services in India in the report.
Health tourism led to ill-health
The much publicised effort of the government to promote India as a "Health Tourism'' destination is infact contributing to "ill-health'' in the country. A recent report, released by an NGO, Ensuring Universal Access to Health and Education in India, based on studies in the health sector, says that this "distorted'' priority of the government has led to subsidy shifts from the public to the private sector through land subsi dies for the construction of hospitals, cuts in import duties on drugs and equipments and inclusion of private institutions on government health panels.