Cornerstones of availability, affordability, reliability of public tertiary healthcare services and quality medical education in India

Sunil Sharma, Joint Secretary, Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY), Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India set the tone for the second day’s sessions at Healthcare Sabha with a very informative keynote address. He appreciated Express Healthcare and The Indian Express Group for creating a platform like Healthcare Sabha to discuss on various challenges faced by the country’s public healthcare sector. He also iterated that availability, affordability and reliability are the cornerstones of any successful public health system. At the same time he also assured the audience that the healthcare policies in India seek to ensure these crucial factors for all its citizens by trying to reduce out-of-pocket spending, provide healthcare financing through measures such as health insurance, and create health infrastructure.

Sharma also gave a detailed overview of the diverse measures introduced by the government to alleviate the challenges in public health and build a a robust system which would effectively serve all the citizens of the country. He admitted that there is a need to increase our GDP spend on healthcare, however, he also pointed out that funds allotted to this sector has been steadily rising over the years. He cited the rise in NHM funds to elucidate his point.

He also spoke about plans to introduce a National Health Protection Scheme under which around eight crore families would be provided an insurance cover of Rs one lakh for a good basket of IPD procedures.  Similarly, each elderly person under this scheme will get an additional Rs 30000 under this scheme. To be introduced soon, Sharma informed it would be the largest initiative of its kind till date at the national level.

Realising that the cost of medicines constitute a large share of healthcare costs, the government is also looking at providing free medicines and diagnostics services at all public health facilities, announced Sharma. He said that these 544 formulations are provided free of cost to the needy. He also recommended the need for a robust IT system to improve the drug dissemination process. He drew attention to initiatives like the Jan Aushadhi stores and AMRIT stores to bring down out-of-pocket expenses. Highlighting that access to medicines finds mention even in the SDG goals, he informed that the government is making efforts to ensure affordability to healthcare in the country.

Stressing on the government’s moves to enhance availability of healthcare, especially in terms of tertiary care, he spoke on the efforts underway to implement more medical colleges, revamping the district hospitals to provide more facilities to patients such as dialysis centres, cardiac care centres and oncology care centres. Sharma also drew attention that the government is also looking training allied healthcare professionals as well as and gave a rundown of various initiatives in this direction.

He also admitted that there are several chinks in our system that need to be ironed out to fortify it and make it more foolproof. He also addressed queries from the audience to give them more clarity on the government’s stance and commitment to improve healthcare scenario in the country.

Key  announcements:

• 20 new AIIMS under PMSSY, 6 are already functional another 14 are underway
• Upgradation of 72 medical colleges and 58 district hospitals
• Launch of  National Health Protection Scheme for expanding health cover
• Creation of more seats for MBBS and PG courses
• Total fund for PMSSY last year – 2400 crores, this year it is 4000 crores (an increase of 60 per cent)