Experts convene from across the globe to share their learnings and debate on ways and means to create an ideal health system
Tata Memorial Centre, as part of its platinum jubilee celebrations, is hosting a three-day conference from January 27-29, 2016, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Tata Trusts and Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Colaba, Mumbai. The conference revolves around a very pertinent and perennial question, Is healthcare a commodity or a basic need?
National and international experts have convened at the conference to discuss and deliberate on the various aspects of this issue and exchange notes on operating sustainable healthcare systems. The first day of the conference began with an inaugural address by Dr RA Badwe, Director, TMC, who welcomed the delegates and gave an overview of what’s in store over the next three days of the conference.
After his address, international experts from across the globe took the stage to showcase the healthcare systems in their respective countries and the various measures implemented to ensure quality healthcare to the citizens. The speakers who took the stage were Bernard Couttolenc ,Chief Executive Officer of the Performa Institute, São Paulo, Brazil, Somsak Chunharas [Senior Public Health Advisor and former Deputy Prime Minister for Public Health, Thailand; Kennedy Lishimpi, Director, Cancer Diseases Hospital, Zambia; Ryozo Matsuda, Professor in Health Policy and Community Health, College of Social Sciences, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto; Maziar Moradi-Lakeh Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (USA) & Iran University of Medical Sciences (Iran); Karine Chevreul, Professor, Public Health, Health Economics and Health Services Research Unit, University of Paris and Osvaldo García González [Professor, Cuba’s Sports Medicine Institute.
A panel discussion with these experts followed wherein the experts addressed topics like the ways and means to achieve UHC, models of healthcare financing, maintaining efficacy and quality in public health systems and tackling the disparities in healthcare delivery etc.
The second session saw representatives from healthcare institutions in India share the stage to present their healthcare model and its advantages. Dr Sanjay Oak, Former Director Medical Education & Major Hospitals, MCGM, who presented the public health model in India. He also highlighted the challenges in this model and called for more accountability, change in the current approaches as well as out-of-the-box strategies to deal with the chinks in the system.
Dr BS Ajaikumar, Chairman, HCG, showcased the private healthcare system in the country and highlighted that his model revolves around offering comprehensive cancer care with the highest quality. He also opined that affordability should be measured in terms of outcomes.
Dr Badwe spoke of the TMC model which provides affordable cancer care and uses a combination of hub and spoke model, education and research to enhance cancer care in the country. Dr Sunil Chandy presented the CMC Vellore model of healthcare which is firmly rooted in the principle f service. He was very vocal against commercialisation of healthcare and said that healthcare should be ensured to every person who needs it, irrespective of which social strata he/she belongs to. Dr P Namperumalsamy, Chairman- Emeritus, Aravind Eye Care System, the next speaker highlighted that service and business can be combined to create a successful healthcare system and showcased Aravind Eyecare System as an evidence of this point. A panel discussion with all these experts as well as Dr JP Gupta, Commissioner – Health, Gujarat and Dr Avinash Supe, Dean & Director, KEM was also held wherein the panellists discussed on the sustainability and efficacy of each model, their replicability, learnings which can be implemented to create a better public health system, areas to collaborate etc. Dr Benjamin Anderson, Chair & Director, The Breast Health Global Initiative, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre was the moderator for this session.
The panel discussion was titled, ‘Scalability, Growth and Affordability of Institution Models’. The other panel discussions for the day were on ‘Efficacy Endpoints in Healthcare Delivery’, and ‘Access to Affordable Care’. Experts drew attention to the need for proper guidelines to ensure best quality healthcare, a yardstick to measure the efficacy of the current health systems, making UHC a direction than a destination and similar pivotal points.
Thus, the first day of the event was filled with fruitful discussions and a lot of knowledge exchange, thereby setting the stage for the next two days of the conference. Health economists, policy planners, administrators, clinicians, patient advocates, epidemiologists, regulators and other stakeholders were part of the conference. TMC plans to collate the learnings over the three-day conference and create a ‘Mumbai Declaration’ which will be presented to the government.
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