The Union Ministry of Development of North-Eastern Region (DoNER) is planning to explore new initiatives in the field of healthcare for the North-Eastern Region (NER). Minister of State (Independent Charge) DoNER Dr Jitendra Singh said the feasibility of these initiatives either as public enterprise or through public-private participation will soon be worked out.

Discussion on healthcare initiatives for North-Eastern Region (NER) took place during a meeting of Dr Singh with a team of health entrepreneurs led by joint managing director of Apollo Hospitals Sangita Reddy recently. Reddy handed over a request letter to Dr Singh for a possible public-private initiative in health and medical care in the NER.

"Many NER States have sought the reinforcement of healthcare and medical facilities. However, there was no final word and it was yet to be decided whether this could be accomplished purely through public exchequer or public private partnership (PPP) and in case of the latter, a definite module of guidelines needed to be worked out," Dr Singh said.

Despite nearly half a dozen medical colleges in the region, the Northeast is still faced with a huge shortfall of health resources. With increasing health awareness among all sections of society, the need of the hour is not only quantitative supplementation of the services, but also provision for quality healthcare so that patients from the region do not have to travel to long destinations for treatment, Dr Singh observed.

Dr Singh said reinforcement of specialized and super-specialized healthcare in the region also held the potential to attract medical tourism from neighbouring countries, thus generating revenue and economic uplift of the region. While seeking to bring the Northeast closer to the mainstream, DoNER Ministry will also try to make the region a part of pan-India state-of-the-art healthcare infrastructure, he added.