Government seeks private sector investments in health sector
The government on Thursday called on India’s private sector to invest in the country’s health sector, especially in the areas of infrastructure and logistics & supply chain arrangements. “We have been in constant dialogue with the industry on health issues for so many years and now the time is ripe for us to move forward. I assure the government’s commitment to promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experience, expertise and mutual trust,” Health Minister J P Nadda said. “In spite of several challenges in the health sector in the country, our vision is to provide universal health coverage i.e. ensure universal access to quality healthcare that they need without financial hardship for our citizens,” Nadda said. The health minister announced setting up of a special task force comprising of ministry and the private sector representatives to further deliberate on the contours of such partnership. Nadda highlighted some challenges in the health sector such as variation in health facilities between urban and rural areas, variation between public and private health services and issues of regulation regarding health activities. “Concentration of health services in the southern and western parts of the country doesn’t match in terms of health delivery system as well as health infrastructure with the northern and central regions. The North-Eastern and the Central tribal areas also need attention,” Nadda said. Giving an example of “Mission Indradhanush” - the world’s largest immunisation programme – the health minister said the full immunisation cover has increased to 65% while the aim is to extend this to 90% by 2020. The government has released a total sum of over Rs.1, 34,000 crores for the National Health Mission (NHM) since it was first launched.
December 10, 2015 | 06:00pm IST
to success.