Public-Private, Centre and States, all should work together on Universal Healthcare: Jagdeep Dhankhar, Vice President of India
October 11, 2022
Need a tailored insurance product for the middle class: Dr VK Paul
NEW DELHI. 11 October
2022: The health sector
has to play a crucial role in achieving the objective of a USD 5 trillion
economy, said Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar, Hon'ble Vice President of India,
and Chairman, Rajya Sabha, at FICCI HEAL 2022, organised
by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
"Health sector is intimately intertwined
with health and economic growth," he said.
Shri Dhankhar inaugurated the 16th
edition of the event, which acts as a platform to converge all stakeholders in
healthcare and as a forum for sharing learnings and experiences.
The Vice President invited everyone to
work on the goal of universal healthcare. He said, "let us work together,
public and private, centre and state, citizen and government for our collective
dream of universal health care, affordable accessible, advanced and quality
healthcare for our people."
On occasion, Dr Sangita Reddy, Past
President of FICCI and Joint MD of Apollo Hospitals, noted that the
transformation and scaling of health access in the last five to seven years
give "a glimmer of hope that universal health care will become a reality." She
alluded to the eSanjeevani platform with six crore teleconsultations, about
17.7 Crore beneficiaries under Ayushman Bharat and 219 crores COVID doses
facilitated through the COWIN platform and said, "the pace of inclusion,
involvement and the push towards universal health care in our country is here
to stay."
Dr Reddy, however, put forth three
industry pain points needing redress from the government. First, she noted, was 'National Priority Status' for health to enable more significant funding and
infrastructure enhancement. Secondly, she emphasised 'support for hospitals
which are put up in tier three and four cities and rural India.' Lastly, she
stressed, 'healthcare must be able to avail the input tax credit through a zero
rating or even a low rating of 3 to 5 per cent.'
During the session on the 'role of
healthcare in driving India's economic growth', Dr V K Paul,
Member, NITI Aayog, said that the public health cadre is being
operationalised.
Dr Paul alluded to the two major
medium-term investment programmes in the infrastructure front: Rs 77,000 crores
of total grant to be dispersed over five years for primary health care, infrastructure
and diagnostics under the XV finance commission. The other is Ayushman Bharat
Infrastructure Mission which has Rs 64,000 crores for disbursal over five years
for infrastructure development. "If you add this up and divide by the number of
districts, each district has a potential of Rs 200 crores of investment over
five years," he said.
Dr Paul also noted that Medical Value
Travel is a high priority for the government, and 'major engagement and
facilitators enablers would come up in a short span of time'. He also
underscored the need for a tailored insurance product for the middle class in
the country. "Only 6.8 per cent of individuals have private insurance," he
said, adding, "NITI has been talking about this missing middle of 30-40 crores
who need insurance."
He also encouraged the private sector to
take greater responsibility in PG training and develop infrastructure to cater
to the country's evolving healthcare needs and opportunities. He added
healthcare infrastructure cannot be developed by public sector alone.
Mr Gautam Khanna, Chair of the FICCI Health Services
Committee & CEO of PD Hinduja Hospital & MRC, said about 5 million
people are directly employed, and there is an opportunity to create 1 million
more jobs in the sector. He noted that it is crucial to view healthcare as a
contributor to the country's overall economic growth and lay a greater emphasis
on healthcare spending, as well as favourable policies for increased investment
and research in the sector.
Hon'ble Vice President Dhankhar also released
two publications, FICCI-EY Paper on "Call for Action: Making cancer
care more accessible and affordable in India" and FICCI-KPMG
Paper on "Strengthening healthcare workforce in India: the 2047 agenda"
Dr Harsh Mahajan, Co-Chair of the FICCI Health Services
Committee and Founder & Chief Radiologist of Mahajan Imaging, and Dr Sunil
Kumar, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Johns Hopkins
University, USA, also spoke on occasion.
FICCI Media Division
Releases in the Event:
FICCI HEAL 2022
'Healthcare Transformation: Driving India's Economic Growth'
Oct 10 - Oct 12, 2022
Other Press Releases:
- Digitization will result in desirable attributes in the healthcare system: CEO, National Health Authority
- FICCI and KPMG releases a report titled 'Strengthening healthcare workforce in India: the 2047 agenda - Top 20 priorities' at the 1​6th edition of FICCI's annual healthcare conference- FICCI HEAL 2022