The 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 indigenous or, as he put it, “Make in India” healthcare strategies which could optimally address the healthcare issues from Indian perspective and in Indian conditions. He was delivering the inaugural address at the “Healthcare” Conference organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), here today. Dr. Jitendra Singh referred to Indian guidelines for treatment of diseases like Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus which also form the basis of the guidelines adopted by certain other countries and said that the changing spectrum of disease prevalence in the country required specifically oriented healthcare strategies involving all the stake-holders including medical professionals, pharma industry and public as well as private healthcare agencies.
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 a 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 are confined only to cities or big towns as a result of which, 70% of rural population gets access only to 1/3rd of hospitalization facilities and over 600 million people in the country are deprived of access to affordable healthcare.
The emergence of private sector is an inevitable phenomenon, said Dr. Jitendra Singh, but cautioned that for a country like India, public sector healthcare was still very much relevant and therefore called for a healthy synergization 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 reiterated that over 65 percent of India’s population is below the age of 35 and at the same time, diseases like Type-2 Diabetes Mellitus are showing a rapid upsurge in the young. A major challenge would be to strategize our future approach to avoid incapacitation on account of such long term diseases among the younger age group because youth are going to be the major potential strength of 21st century India. He said, in the present set up under Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, this is one of the best opportunities for the healthcare holders of the country to realise their full potential with appropriate support from the government sources. Among prominent speakers who made their presentations on the occasion were Dr Nandkumar Jairam, Chairman, FICCI Health Services Committee, Dr Arvind Virmani, Dr Arvind Lal, Dr Narottam Puri and Mr Pankaj Patel.