Addressing the India Health Summit, organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), as chief guest here today, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh called for establishing a “Make in India” healthcare module, based on public-private partnership as well as multi-centric healthcare collaboration to meet the changing health needs of 21st century India. Dr Jitendra Singh said, the Indian society, as a whole, is fast evolving and at the same time, in recent years, India too has become a part of shrunken global world and this phenomenon is impacting every sphere of life including the healthcare system.
While on the one hand, disorders like Diabetes and heart disease, which were hitherto confined to urban population, are now also on the rise in rural areas, on the other hand, the access to modern modalities of treatment is confined only to cities and big towns, as a result of which 70% of rural population gets access only to 1/3rd of country’s hospitalization facilities and over 600 million people in the country are deprived of access to affordable healthcare, he added. Describing the emergence of private sector as an inevitable phenomenon, Dr Jitendra Singh stressed that for a heterogeneous country like India, public sector healthcare was still very much relevant and therefore, called for a healthy synergy between public sector and private sector healthcare agencies.
He cited the experience from Northeast where he had motivated some of the country’s leading corporate sector hospital groups to set up healthcare outlets of different magnitudes depending on the viability of the location, in the form of OPD clinics or diagnostic centres or even full fledged hospitals. Dr Jitendra Singh invited Dr NareshTrehan and other health corporate leaders to do a recce of Northeast region and come forward with concrete proposals. He said, he will constitute a wide based committee to facilitate outreach programmes which both the public and private will find a win-win bargain and would also serve the noble purpose of bringing healthcare to the doorstep of the remotest of remote areas in the region. Earlier, speaking on the occasion, Dr NareshTrehan referred to shortage of health professionals in the country. He said, the private sector was ready to offer its services and fill in the missing gaps. He requested Dr Jitendra Singh to use his good offices to enable a constructive collaboration with the government for achieving India’s health goals.