With the participation of many policy makers and healthcare stakeholders, Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India’s (OPPI) seminar on ‘Access to Healthcare- Challenges and Way Forward’, turned out to be a highly successful event. The event also saw the presence of distinguished professionals, acclaimed experts and scientists from the Indian healthcare industry and allied sectors.
While addressing the gathering, Ranjit Shahani, President, OPPI and Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Novartis, said, “Every individual should be able to easily receive optimal preventive and curative care, without adverse financial impact to access to healthcare. The primary role of pharma companies is to develop and market high quality medicines for medical needs. Multiple stakeholders need to come together to improve access to healthcare and one of the key members would be the Government. Partners such as UN agencies, NGOs and others also play a meaningful role with their expertise and resources.”
While providing insights into the Indian healthcare market to improve access, Amit Backliwal, Managing Director, IMS Health Information and Consulting Services, said that quality, human resource and healthcare infrastructure are some of the factors that decide the healthcare access. He also pointed out that the Indian healthcare environment is a complex one with significant variations across the country in terms of population and geography. The comprehensive IMS study, based on a survey of nearly 15,000 households across 12 states along with 1,000 doctors and experts, has revealed that while progress has been made in India over the past decade by both public and private sector initiatives, significant challenges persist in providing quality healthcare on an equitable, accessible and affordable basis across all regions and communities.
Dr Sanjay Oak, Vice Chancellor, Padmashree Dr D Y Patil University, gave a very informative speech over the ways to make healthcare delivery more efficient. He spoke about innovative concepts like mobile clinics/ diagnostics/ dialysis units/ operation theaters/ ICUs and door to door delivery. Mobile care units would ensure the availability of healthcare to needy patients. He stressed that people’s involvement is the most important thing in increasing healthcare access. “Accessibility is as important as affordability,” Oak argued.
A lot has been said about PPP in the healthcare sector. Venkat Raman, Associate Professor, Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University, discussed the challenges and opportunities associated with this concept. Significance of private health sector in India and PPP models in service delivery were also the key points in his speech. He said, “Given the respective strengths and weaknesses neither the public sector nor the private sector alone is in the best interest of the health system.”
Speakers at the event unanimously opined that industry should contribute parts of their profits for building the healthcare infrastructures in needy areas. Besides to make working in rural areas compulsory for doctors, increased expenditure through PPP model was also debated as important thing to increase healthcare access.
In a country like India with more than a billion population, healthcare access is very challenging. Debates, as such will not immediately improve the situation but will definitely lay the foundation for the same.