The Industry Ministry has promised its support to the moves to accord infrastructure status to the hospital sector, in a bid to give a major boost to the efforts of making available land and other facilities to the new hospital ventures in the private sector.

However, Minister of State for Industry Ashwani Kumar asked the private players to make use of it without being driven too much by profit motives. He was inaugurating the two-day Global Healthcare Conference jointly organized by the FICCI and the UK Trade and Investment on `promoting partnerships' here today.

The Minister disclosed that the Commerce Ministry was very proactive in international trade negotiations in seeking market access for healthcare professionals from various countries.

The two-day conference, aimed at striking partnership deals between the players from India and UK, is attended by a 67-member delegation from Britain led by Richard Sykes, former chairman of GlaxoSmithKline.

Listing the efforts of the Government in the healthcare sector with measures like National Rural Health Mission, the Minister called for public-private partnership as a national mission to actualize healthcare growth in the country. He called for more PPP models like Karuna Trust in Karnataka and Chiranjeevi scheme of Gujarat.
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The public investment in training of medical personnel must increase and I urge the private healthcare providers and health education providers to invest more in education to bridge the existing gap. Telemedicine and health insurance are some of the potential areas that need to be promoted by the government and the private sector jointly to achieve health for all by 2020,'' he said.

The meet is attended by corporate leaders from healthcare and associated industries and policy makers from India, UK and South Asian countries to discuss on the emerging strategies, opportunities and challenges in the sector. The conference is expected to come out with a road-map for mutual cooperation and collaboration.