NEW DELHI, Aug 12:
Inviting active industry participation to provide healthcare services in India, Dr Jagdish Prasad, Director General of Health Services, today said that Industry should adopt one district in each state to upgrade the medical facilities in District and primary health centres.
“Industry should adopt one district in each state, upgrading the medical facilities in District and primary health centres to provide the best possible quality healthcare services to the common man,” he said at a conclave on ‘NextGen Healthcare – Roadmap: Healthcare for All’, organized by Confederation of Indian Industry here.
Pointing out that Public Private Partnership was the only solution to vast prevailing disparity in healthcare, he appealed to the industry, cooperatives and the NGOs for support specifically in strengthening healthcare delivery systems, drugs distribution, use of Information Technology (IT) and enhanced pharma supply chain management.
“We are ready to support you with funds, even in converting the district hospitals into world class medical hospitals but industry will have to ensure proper delivery systems and strengthened supply chain, so that the facilities and medicines reach even the last person in the remotest areas,” he stressed.
Highlighting the solution to this challenge, he also called for integration of working of five key ministries–the Ministry for Rural Development, Women and Child development, Water, Urban sanitation, Education and health.
“Presently, we all are working in isolation of each other and do not know what the other ministries are doing. If these five ministries can derive coordinated campaigns and launch joint schemes, then we would be far better equipped to provide quality healthcare to each and every individual of this country,” he said.
“This is because some of the challenges lie outside health-care policy. Two-thirds of the health problems can also be solved by providing safe drinking water and sanitation. Even if we concentrate on these basic facilities, we can control many water-borne and air-borne infectious diseases,” he added.
Each year 39 million people in India enter BPL category due to poor delivery of healthcare services. To confront this, industry has to by-pass the bureaucratic bottlenecks and find out innovative ways or build confidence with Chief Ministers and get MC regulations eased, Prasad said.
“For this, the key is good intent and strong political will of the Government, the DG emphasized.
He also recommended altering the constitution to make Healthcare a Centre subject, which is presently a state subject.
“The State Governments and bureaucracy are not as proactive as they should be. For example, we adopted and provided money to 238 districts out of total 730 odd districts to create special Cardiac clinics across India, but only 37 centres have come up so far, that too majorly in south and very few in Rajasthan and Gujarat.
“None of the other northern states benefitted from this scheme. In 12th Five year plan, we have decided to develop 20 National Cancer Centers at a cost of 120 crores,” he said.
“Our ministry is also planning to open AIIMS in all states and create ideal healthcare centres across different states with world class standards at Rs 50 crore each and would ask State Governments to replicate similar standards in others as well. We would soon launch a web portal and E mechanism for public health delivery like supply chain management, drugs distribution and recognition, hospitals and available healthcare facilities for different diseases etc,” he said.
Dr (Prof) Ranjit Roy Chaudhary, Principal Advisor to the Health Minister said, “We would soon launch a scheme called ‘Healthcare Assurance for all citizens’ which would cover each and every citizen of the country. Presently, only 25 per cent of our population is insured. (PTI)
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