Public-Private, Centre and States, all should work together on Universal Healthcare: Jagdeep Dhankhar, Vice President of India

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 Mr 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.

Mr 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.”

Dr Sangita Reddy, Past President, 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.