Nadda calls for common platform for public, pvt sector professionals

Stressing on common platform for public and private sector professionals, Union Health Minister JP Nadda said that there was an urgent need to develop a forum for healthcare providers and professionals to engage in meaningful and interactive discussions with the government entities to enable the transformation and re-engineering of the Indian healthcare industry.

“The healthcare sector was moving in the right direction and ‘speed, scale and skill’ were needed to keep the momentum of the drive alive,” the health minister said on Thursday.

Nadda said that the biggest challenge for the government was to provide quality and affordable healthcare services in far-flung corners of the country as healthcare services were concentrated in urban areas and not available to vulnerable sections of the society.

Hence, he urged the private sector to create a common platform for deliberations on enhancing qualitative and quantitative aspects of healthcare services and making it accessible and affordable for all.

The minister also said that there was a need to reduce out of pocket expenses, which could be achieved with innovation and leveraging technology. Adoption of technologies such as tele-medicine would go a long way in improving healthcare services in rural areas and IT-enabled medical services would enable better management and help in regaining the trust of the patients in medical fraternity.

“Private sector was actively engaged in secondary and tertiary healthcare in urban areas but the need was to focus on primary healthcare and bring rural areas under the healthcare purview, which have remained under-served. Lack of trained medical practitioners and support staff was another issue that needed to be addressed urgently,” Nadda emphasised.

Alluding to the government’s initiatives, the minister said that medical colleges and institutions such as AIIMS were being opened all over the country to meet the rising demand of professionals for the sector. 

Calling upon the private hospital players to open medical institutions to deliver effectively to the Indian citizens, the minister assured the private players that they would be facilitated by the government and policies would be framed to enable them to function seamlessly in the domain.

Speaking on the rise of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in India, JP Nadda said, “NCDs was related to lifestyle disorders and the need was to educate children at an early age about lifestyle choices and how they impact their health. Hence, the government was planning to come out with a pictorial leaflet, a lifestyle guide as a part of the school curriculum, which would educate students about healthy lifestyle choices.”