Govt panel to help private firms mint money from health sector

Calling upon private sector to contribute in health sector, Union Health Minister JP Nadda on Thursday said, “We need stronger partnership to achieve the target under the sustainable development goals (SDGs) to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all by 2030. The country is broadly on track to achieve the three MDGs related to the health sector.”

Nadda also announced setting up of a Working Group comprising of ministry and the private sector representatives to further deliberate on the further contours of such partnership.

“We get wonderful ideas from the companies. We have been interacting with each other. But the problem is we discuss and disperse. There is no concrete approach on how we would go about it. Therefore, I declare to form a Working Group with the ministry and the private leaders to come up with alternate and rare PPP models in a time bound manner,” he said.

The Health Minister said that the Working Group will break the barriers to help government collaborate with private sector.  “Despite several challenges in the health sector, our vision is to provide universal health coverage by ensuring universal access to quality healthcare that they need without financial hardship for our citizens,” said Nadda at 12th India Health Summit, an annual flagship event on healthcare, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

“Many new ideas come but they need to be examined. And this is only possible if we hold intense discussions on issues, understanding about them and see how successful models can come up,” Nadda said, adding that government needs special support from private health leaders in areas like infrastructure, alternative finance arrangements, skills and insurance issues.

“We really need to discuss these areas and decide how we will go forward. As you are the leaders in the health industry and catering to 70 per cent of the health care, you have a major role to play and your support will be useful. IT and accessibility are the areas where we can go forward among others,” he said.

The Health Minister said that stakeholders are important for key interventions to improve the health care system as the government faces several challenges. “We work under certain challenges. We can view, address and share the problems but stakeholders are the persons who know where and how the interventions are required to make the health care facilities better,” he said. 

Enumerating the recent notable achievements of the ministry, Nadda said that with Mission Indradhanush, a world’s largest immunization programme, the full immunization cover has increased to 65 per cent while the aim is to extend this 90 per cent by 2020. Nadda also invited suggestion from the private sector for the draft National Health Policy.