nagpur doctors in central india had mixed reactions to the union budget 2022 for health sector while they welcomed moves like national digital health ecosystem and national tele mental health program they also lamented the health sector in the region is not going to get muchhigher allocation for healthcare was expected but instead of making new announcements the government has focused on implementation of initiatives announced during the pandemic year said dr madhusudan mishra senior general physiciandr ravi wankhedkar treasurer of world medical association termed it as an okay budget with regard to health big figures has been a specialty of this government so far and it was repeated again but the real devil will be in the details he said adding that digital services in health sector is welcome but data security and patient confidentiality are biggest threatsupgradation of anganwadis and the holistic approach for synergy of various nutritional schemes are welcome moves said gynecologist dr anita wate who practices in rural yavatmal we have seen that mission poshan has shown good results in rural public health strengthening this basic system will surely bring good results in future too she said mission shakti for protection and empowerment for women and mission vatsalya for child protection and child welfare services are appreciable social initiatives said dr anoop marar convener of vidarbha hospital association according to him allocations for integrated public health labs and establishing critical care hospital blocks are aimed at avoiding any crisis of the kind we experienced during covidpsychologist dr pradip patil from sawangi meghe hospital said tele mental health centres were much needed a large chunk of indias population suffers from some type of mental illness and 80 of them remain undiagnosed and hence untreated the pandemic has exacerbated the problem hopefully the new initiative will bring some respite he said nagpur division has a good pharma setup and many manufacturers are active here pharma experts said they were expecting much more genomics and pharma sectors will now get policy support the budget also has allocations for promotion of research and developments however direct benefit and boost to local pharma companies was not fulfilled said kailas tandale president of maharashtra practising pharmacists associationhealth budget highlights219 of gdp against expected 3 of gdp near 219 to be spent on health in 202122 it was 214 better hospitals rs4177 crore for ayushman bharat health infrastructure mission pmabhim against rs585 crore in 202122 nutrition rs10234 crore for pradhan mantri poshan shakti nirman pm poshan to eradicate malnutrition anganwadis budgetary estimate allocation of rs20263 crore for anganwadis for better motherchild health pandemic rs690 crore for bio security preparedness and strengthening pandemic research