The speakers and participants in a symposium on primary healthcare called for a synergy between the private sector, including NGOs, and the public sector for reforms and improvement in healthcare and also integrating the traditional medicine in rural healthcare services. The symposium was organized by the Delhi-based Charities Aid Foundation India and Indian Social Venture Capital Forum in Association with Naandi Foundation in Hyderabad on Friday.
Initiating the discussion on Primary Healthcare Innovations in India, Dr K Anji Reddy, Chairman of Dr Reddy's Laboratories and Naandi Foundation, exhorted the Indian diaspora to contribute to a medical chest and said the venture philanthropists in the country were prepared to put in a matching contribution. Besides free medicines to the poorest of the poor, especially the HIV patients, he highlighted the need to provide safe and clean drinking water.
"This is something we can do, but it should be taken up with a passion and commitment." He said Naandi was committed to implementing this scheme and would take up work towards this end soon.
Dr Reddy stressed the need to evolve a feasible model for healthcare, which could be easily implemented. He said the Indian diaspora was a potential resource and that should be tapped. He was confident that any proposal from Naandi would get a good response.
At the symposium aimed at harvesting ideas on innovations in healthcare, several other proposals came up like major policy reforms, changing the health scenario as a whole in the country, integration of the alternative medical system in primary healthcare, sanitation and hygiene, provision of toilets, trained health workers to fill the gap of qualified doctors and community based health insurance. Participants also suggested that organisations like Naandi should take up some of these projects.
Dr Ashok Dayal Chand, Director, Institute of Health Management, Pachod, Maharashtra, said primary healthcare and prevention of diseases were the responsibility of the government. The private sector, he said, was commercialized, profit-motivated and was interested in only curative care. He said the government sector needed certain structural changes in order to sustain the projects unlike in the past when their implementation was faulty. He called for a bottom up federation of PRIs (Panchayati Raj Institutions) at various levels and giving decision-making powers and financial management to PRIs. He said the projects should be more need-based and the government should adopt a rights based approach.
He said a silent revolution was taking place in rural India and the diaspora should seize this opportunity. "We have one of the largest infrastructure facilities in the world. There is a movement to bring about reforms and to improve quality in healthcare services and the diaspora can get involved in the reform process," he said
He highlighted how voluntary organisations can help the rural population. Working among the adolescent girls, his Institute was able to motivate them to delay their marriage from an average age of 14.5 to 17 years in a backward village in Marathwada.
Jagdish Hiremath, member, High-level Committee on Indian Diaspora, said education on preventive healthcare was more important than starting more hospitals. He said the NRIs were willing to contribute but the government should have nothing to do with it. They needed some sort of organized channel to invest and a proper linkage back home. Hiremath suggested the participants to project their specific needs in an effective way. He said January 9 would be observed as Pravasi Bhareteeya Diwas to get the NRIs more involved in developmental activities in the country.
Mathew Cherian, Executive Director, CAF-India, said the Indian Diaspora could be tapped on issue-specific and group-specific lines. His association would act as a liaison between the diaspora and the healthcare investors in the country.
Dr I Srinivasa Sarma, Director, Primary Healthcare, Government of Andhra Pradesh, said rural healthcare was one of the best in the state and he called for private participation to improve the facilities further.
Manoj Kumar, CEO, Naandi, gave a brief account of the Foundation, which is a not-for-profit professional organization that serves as a platform to receive funds globally and catalyse sustainable development locally. He also briefed on some ongoing projects being undertaken by the Foundation.
R Gopa Kumar, Asst Director, CAF-India, gave a brief account on the healthcare scenario in the country. He said delivery of healthcare was poor at both public and private providers. Though the government had a vast base of primary health centres and community health centres in the rural areas, the patients turn to private providers for most of their needs, as doctors and medicines were not easily available. The private healthcare sector was a burden for the rural poor though the service was much better than at the PHCs, at least for immediate care.
He said the spending on healthcare delivery would more than double over the next 10 years. The estimated increase was from Rs 86,000 crore in 2000-01 to over Rs 2,00,000 crore in real terms by 2012. The government would not be able to spend so much and therefore, the need for tapping funds from the private sector and the Indian Diaspora.
Kameshwari, Developmental Consultant, was the Facilitator for the symposium held in four sessions. Dr Indrani Gupta of the Institute of Economic Growth and Prof. Chandrasekhar Bhat of the Centre for the Study of Indian Diaspora, Hyderabad Central University, also took part in the panel discussions.