Team Herald
PANJIM: Niti Ayog advisor Alok Kumar has put the onus on State governments to find solutions to health care needs and not dump the responsibility on the Centre alone.
Kumar was speaking at a conference organised by Goa Institute of Management (GIM) on the theme – Accelerating and Sustaining Investments for Financing India’s Healthcare Needs – where leaders representing the government, industry and academia deliberated on the opportunities and challenges.
Alok Kumar, Advisor, NITI Ayog, Government of India said, “Healthcare is not a T20 match. The solutions may take some time. There are drastic differences in the health systems across States within our country. We have a highly fragmented healthcare system. Therefore, for us to believe that an identical approach will work across the country is an ambitious thought.”
He added that the State governments need to be more proactive on finding solutions to the healthcare needs prevalent in the state and cannot expect strategy to be outsourced to the centre. Secondly we need to elevate the approach from being schematic to be systemic. There needs to be a certain elevation from being mere schemes to creating effective systems. Thirdly the roles within the health ministry ecosystem need to be clearly defined”
Chief Guest Vishwajit Rane, Health Minister, said “Goa has been the first in many healthcare initiatives and is successfully implementing the DDSSY programme. There are challengers but there have also been learnings. And I welcome suggestions and learnings where we can improve. I request GIM to suggest solutions to us from time to time and be a knowledge partner to the Health Department. We look towards GIM to offer us researched suggestions, solutions and guidance”
He added, “NITI Ayog has offered a good framework to work within for State governments. Collaborations between the public and private entities can assist a great deal. Private medical collages can collaborate with district hospitals which will be excellent”.
He later tweeted, “Our vision is to make Goa the most technologically advanced state in terms of Healthcare that will provide service to all citizens at their doorstep.”
Brig. Dr. Arvind Lal (Padma Shri), Chairman and Managing Director, Dr. Lal PathLabs stressed that greater investment in healthcare is the need of the hour. “The government has made significant strides in the healthcare space. To see greater improvements, the government needs to immediately increase the financial allocation for the dispensing of healthcare from a mere 1% out of a total of 3.9% of GDP to 2.5% of GDP. A good starting point would be to spend an extra 0.5% of GDP every year on healthcare for the next three years.
Dr. Kheya Furtado, Assistant Professor, GIM presented findings from a WHO funded study conducted for the National Health Authority, Government of India on ‘Strategic purchasing in the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana through the Trust and Insurance model’.
She emphasized that claim audits need to be facilitated by tools such as STGs and long- term capacities need to be built and retained in the public trusts for management of claims. As scheme utilization increases, costs are likely to change, especially in Insurance model States due to the sharing of financial losses that may lead to larger premiums charged to States by Insurance companies.
