With 40 per cent of people ending up in debt after hospitalisation, the Union Health Ministry has joined hands with the industry to work out the treatment costs of therapeutic diseases to make them affordable to all.
"Affordability is a big question and where should we fix the benchmarkIJ We cannot do it based on the highly expensive treatment in the private sector, nor base it on the free healthcare delivery in the public sector," CK Mishra, Additional Secretary in the Ministry added that a panel has been set up to work out the actual cost of treatment in different therapeutic areas.
This would help the Government to formulate its health welfare schemes, said Mishra at the valedictory session of the first Global Health Conference on Social Marketing and Franchising in Kochi on Thursday.
The senior official also lamented that the private sector interventions in the primary sector was very low, though there was much intervention at the tertiary level, at least in the urban areas.
"The private sector is not yet ready to participate at the primary level and the Government role is to fill this gap," he said. He said that the stakeholders must come up with innovative models, especially in the medical devices sector. "Technology is the only solution to make medical equipments and treatment affordable. We look toward to the industry to come with ideas appropriate to the health concerns of the particular country," he added.
Finding and fixing a benchmark was a dilemma also in the case of quality, which is a major key to universal health coverage, he said, while stressing that any scheme being planned by the Government should be sustainable. "The idea of free medicines to all is good but we have to make sure that it continues and need to
look at the practical solutions to make it sustainable," Mishra said.