COMMENT | Budgeting in unprecedented times

COMMENT | I’m no health economist, nor do I have access to the national health expenditure budget and data, but it was somewhat surprising that many health services are facing significant budget cuts.

I do know that budgets are usually made based on previous years’ spending, and it would be odd if a budget cut is being made despite significant usage. However, I don’t have that data, so I don’t know.

I do know that many elective services were disrupted during this pandemic. I believe that this would mean the budget allocated for these services would not have been used, and with the rising Covid-19 expenses, they probably would have been transferred for that instead.

Hopefully, this fact was not overlooked when the budget was made, because those disrupted services are still wanted and needed by many, and we have to provide them, just at a later time.

Budgeting in unprecedented times is no easy feat. There is no recommendation or previous year template to adapt. It also doesn’t make sense to follow the pattern of spending of earlier years as the Covid-19 pandemic has messed up our expenses, and we need to acknowledge and adapt to that.

Nephrology service seems to have received a massive 78 percent budget cut. That just sounds crazy since the prevalence of renal failure did not miraculously drop this year. Covid-19 didn’t end up curing diseased kidneys...