Not Govt, Industrial body brings out vision document on Quality and Affordable Healthcare

Hyderabad: The Former chief secretary of Telangana, Somesh Kumar, and chief advisor to chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Thursday releases FTCCI’s “Vision 2030--Quality and Affordable Health for All in Telangana State Document." Dr G.N. Rao, Founder and Chair of LV Prasad Eye Institute and Anil Agarwal, President of FTCCI and Dr. Subodh Kandamuthan, Dean of Training Programmes ASCI were present.

Addressing the gathering, Somesh Kumar said normally the Vision Documents are brought out by the Governments. But, FTCCI, though the industrial body, took responsibility for bringing a Vision 2030 document on Health Care very much laudable. We will look into the recommendations at the Government level and work on them seriously, he assured

The Government of Telangana has taken up many measures to make the state “aarogya Telangana”. He highlighted various initiatives and measures taken up by the state government in the past 9 years. The Government recognises that we are short on trained manpower in the Healthcare sector. To address this issue we have come out with Medical College in every district. Thus the number of MBBS seats has gone up from 2800 to 8500, he said.

Telangana is already at the forefront of healthcare in the country and has made rapid strides

The Report addresses equity, disparity and pains of the patients. The focus is on Prevention, Promotion, Better Health & Well-being and helping in creating a patient-friendly environment. It focuses on improving Awareness and Trust in Public Health Care System for Telangana to become the Best Health Destination & Medical Hub.

The 11 recommendations suggested in the Vision 2030 document are as follows. 1. Awareness Through School and College Education Curriculum; 2.Focusing on disease Prevention, Nutrition & Immunity; 3. Re-Building Community Trust in Healthcare Systems and Health Force; 4. Promoting and Strengthening Healthcare Systems Through Public (Primary, Secondary and Tertiary), Private and Public -Private-Partnerships; 5. Providing Health Care for the financially low-income, middle income & high-income groups; 6. Improving the existing healthcare education; 7. To make healthcare more patient-centric through Innovation and Technology; 8. Suggesting Government policies that are more patient-centric; 9. Along with Allopathy other systems or forms of medicine also must be leveraged; 10. Best Value Based practices from various institutes in healthcare should be learnt and implemented and 11. Teaching and Training must be taken up on a massive scale for which Sarkar, Sanstha and Samaj come together.

The few other highlights of the document are:

Similar to Arogyasri and Ayushman Bharat, the government must provide health insurance to all citizens. Citizens above Poverty Line can pay affordable premiums for insurance.

Patients must have the choice to use government or private healthcare facilities. Directly or indirectly, it should not be thrust on them.

Health must be considered a fundamental right of every citizen. There must be dignity of life and dignity of death.

One-third of the healthcare system should be encouraged to be in Public Private Partnership (PPP).

Trained medical assistants can be stationed in Tribal and remote areas where the government doctors have got challenges to visit and stay.

The cost of medical education must be affordable, in order to help the patients to get affordable healthcare with a basic learning of alternate health system (AYUSH) during their 1st and 2nd year of MBBS

Investment in Trust Hospitals like Tata Memorial must be encouraged. Private equity from other countries must be stopped.

There is a huge potential for human service, employment, investment and economic growth. As China has become a leader in manufacturing, Telangana and India can become the world leader in health care.