Health sector PPP mode

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region Dr Jitendra Singh has made a strong plea for promoting PPP (Public-Private Partnership) model in developing healthcare services.

Speaking at a panel discussion on “Leapfrogging to the future – Vision 2030” at the 13th India Health Summit 2016 Dr Singh said optimization of healthcare services is only possible through a healthy mix of both public and private sectors.

However, the private sector will not be able to replace public sector in toto simply because vast areas in remote and rural parts still continue to be catered only by the public services, he conceded.

Similarly, on the other hand, he said, the private sector also cannot sustain for long if it confines its services only to urban or semi-urban regions, said Dr Singh.

With information technology having taken over in a big way and services like telemedicine, etc., becoming the order of the day, India has the advantage of having same expertise and facility available for healthcare as in the most developed countries of the world, he pointed out.

“The only issue now is how best to make use of it for all sections of population from every nook and corner,” said Dr Singh.

Policy planners cannot overlook the fact that 1/3rd of the population of India still does not enjoy access to adequate hospital bed-care, while the patient-doctor ratio is far below the global standards in spite of ever increasing number of medical colleges and mushrooming of medical institutions, said Dr Singh.

A mechanism will have to be devised, said Dr Jitendra Singh, wherein the private and public sectors can supplement each other’s efforts to make their presence available in a more uniform manner and the concentration of healthcare facility in cities also gets diverted to the peripheral areas.

He called on the Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare to set up a single window networking with other Ministries to set up healthcare services.

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) had organized the panel discussion on Dec 15, 2016. fii-news.com