Sonipat, Haryana, India: \nExperts called for universal access to health care, substantial\naugmentation of human resources in the medical field, increasing access to\ndrugs and vaccines, low-cost indigenous solutions and integration of\nalternative systems of medicine to enable India to overcome a number of serious\nchallenges in realizing the right to health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the International Conference on Healthcare organised by\nO. P. Jindal Global University in collaboration with Harvard Global Health\nInstitute and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, several speakers\nemphasized that universal access to healthcare must be the focus of our efforts\nrather than universal health coverage through insurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“18 percent rural population in the country has no\naccess to healthcare,” said Rakesh Kumar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of\nHealth and Family Welfare at the inauguration of ‘Delivering on the Promise of\nUniversal Health Coverage in India: Policy Options and Challenges’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Kumar, the burden of non-communicable diseases\nin the country has increased. “Seventy percent of deaths in India will be\ncaused by non-communicable diseases by 2020.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Delivering the welcome address, Professor C Raj Kumar, Founding\nVice-Chancellor, O. P. Jindal Global University said, “Today’s conference\nis the culmination of an institutional collaboration between Jindal Global\nUniversity, Harvard Global Health Initiative and the Harvard School of Public\nHealth to examine legal, policy and regulatory issues relating to the universal\nhealth coverage in India. It brought together academics, policy makers,\ndoctors, lawyers, public health practitioners, NGOs and government\nrepresentatives to discuss and debate a central issue of public policy, which\nis about the efforts to achieve universal health coverage in India.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Emphasizing on the right to health as a constitutional\npromise Professor Kumar further added, “The need for achieving universal\nhealth coverage with a view to fulfilling the right to health in India is not\nonly a public health issue. It is about fulfilling the democratic aspirations\nof Indian citizenry and achieving good governance; it is about seeking equality\nand non- discrimination in implementing public policy; and most importantly, it\nis about ensuring justice and fulfilling the constitutional promise.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is an imperative need to raise the level of funding\nfor health care programs in the country\u201d, said Dr. Peter Berman, Prof of the\nPractice of Global Health Systems and Economics, Harvard T. H. Chan School\nPublic Health (HSPH), while speaking on the financing promises, commitments,\nand performance of government-driven health care programs of the past ten\nyears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere has always been a high willingness on part of the\ngovernment to allocate and spend money on health care, through programs like\nNational Health Mission. The sole impediment in this direction is not\nwillingness to spend money but the ability to spend it and allocating\nsufficient funds for such programmes is the only viable solution,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Explaining the impact of poor healthcare on the country,\nRamanan Laxminarayan, Professor, Public Health Foundation of India, said,\n\u201cIndia is \u201cvery different from other countries\u201d where \u201cpeople may go into\nfinancial impoverishment because of high primary healthcare cost\u201d.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Highlighting the state of medical education in India, Kesav\nDesiraju, Former Secretary, Department of Consumer Affairs and Former\nSecretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, said the government has no\ninterest in revising the curriculum of MBBS. “The problem is much deeper\nthan we think at the undergraduate level,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Advocating an increased involvement of the private sector\nthe universal health coverage plan, Mr. Rajeev Malhotra, Professor, Jindal\nSchool of Government and Public Policy & Chief Editor, India Public Policy\nReport, said, \u201cThe private sector has made significant investments in the\nhealth care sector in the last ten years and has been a major driver in\ncreating infrastructure in the public goods and services sector.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He further articulated how the density of hospital beds has\nincreased in an incremental manner due to the contributions of the private\nsector, and concluded by saying that the sector had a definite role to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Quoting information released by the National Family Health\nSurvey (NFHS), Dr. Y.S.R. Murthy, Professor and Registrar, JGU, said, \u201cAs per\nthe latest statistics released by NFHS, over 34% of children under the age of\nfive still suffer from malnutrition. This is a silent emergency and an\nextremely serious issue, which requires the urgent attention of the\ngovernment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other distinguished speakers at the conference included: Ms.\nMallika Ahluwalia, Programme Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,\nIndia Country Office, Dr. Ajay Mahal, Professor of Health System and Economics,\nUniversity of Melbourne and Dr. Manoj Mohanan, Assistant Professor, Sanford\nSchool of Public Policy, Duke University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sonipat, Haryana, India: Experts called for universal access to health care, substantial augmentation of human resources in the medical field, increasing access to drugs and vaccines, low-cost indigenous solutions and integration of alternative systems of medicine to enable India to overcome a number of serious challenges in realizing the right Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsroom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1095"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1096,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1095\/revisions\/1096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}