Universal Health: Swachh India, Fit India, New India

InnoHEALTH Magazine — Tue, 07 Jan 2020 08:40:26 +0000

India is a country on transition trying to leapfrog from bullock cart economy to land on the moon, trying to make its place in the world from an emerging economy to a developed economy. It is a country of 1.3 billion population with 276 million that live below $1.25 per day. Its health resource indicators show: there are 65 doctors, 130 nurses and 130 hospital beds for each 1,00,000 population. WHO recommends 3.5 beds per thousand population while we have only one bed per thousand population.
India has 70% of its population in villages with only 30% of the medical assets of the country and 30% of the urban population has 70% of total medical resources. Public health is totally neglected, the government has launched many initiatives like Swachh Bharat, Fit India, New India, and Yoga, etc. that seems too little and too late. The curative healthcare needs to be improved in public hospitals to provide quality healthcare to people Below Poverty Line as service in private hospitals is unaffordable and having many ills. Ayushman Bharat is trying to do a bit of what is required to strengthen healthcare in government hospitals.
We have been juggling with new concepts, ideas, design to achieve healthcare but failed on many accounts as fund utilization and its impact could not be monitored. We could not achieve Health For All by 2000 and moved to NRHM, National Health Mission and Sustainable Development Goals which are not achieved as desired. It can thus be termed as old wine in a new bottle. Health is a state subject hence every state has its different success story. Every state needs to strengthen primary healthcare and quality living should be provided on a war footing for its population. We understand there are many problems and galore, we need to address cost optimization and bring regulation to monitor the quality and cost.
Everyone is talking about Universal Health Coverage and Technology to move things faster. The awareness of various initiatives is not there, even for the educated class. We are trying to make people aware through various knowledge platforms of InnoHEALTH – magazines, webinars, conferences, club meetings, etc. I would like to encourage the ecosystem to share their experiences and concepts through this magazine which is not a journal but a magazine for the commoner. I would like to take up the doable ideas of the community at different forums. We are trying to percolate information right up to the last mile.

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Unmet Needs – Leading to Innovation

InnoHEALTH Magazine — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 06:09:29 +0000

InnovatioCuris & Indiattitude are pleased to announce the 4th edition of InnoHEALTH conference and a new landmark in healthcare innovations; InnoHEALTH 2019.This year’s theme is “Unmet Needs – Leading to Innovation”.

InnoHEALTH 2019 is the fourth in the series of InnoHEALTH annual conference, building on the success of previous InnoHEALTH conferences which saw over 1500 participants from over 19 countries. The conference will be conducted from October 4 – 5, 2019 in Taj Vivanta, Dwarka, New Delhi, India.

India is a country full of contradictions, has bullock carts to the dream of Chandrayan landing on the moon. It is taking the plunge towards new India trying to meet expectations of its 1.3 billion population. The present government is trying to push many initiatives to make India’s place in developed economies of the world.

The unmet needs of healthcare are many, can innovations leapfrog to achieve healthcare at optimum cost with improved quality. India has one bed per thousand population while WHO recommends 3.5 beds per thousand population; 70% rural population is served by only 30% medical assets like physicians, nurses, paramedics, and hospital beds while 30% urban population has 70% medical resources.

The emphasis today is on curative medicine instead of public health and prevention of diseases. This trend needs to be reversed and more emphasis should be on Wellness and Prevention. The efforts have been started by the Prime Minister of India by launching Wellness centers in rural India, Swachh Bharat, and Fit India to name a few but community participation is yet to reach its pinnacle to make these movements successful.

The problems of healthcare are known but the need of the time is a solution of optimum cost to fix unmet needs in a time-bound fashion. The political will is there to take Indian healthcare into a new direction and to achieve desired results; the service providers and the community need to support it whole-heartedly.

India had launched many initiatives in the past like Health For All by 2000, National Rural Health Mission and is a part of Sustainable Development Goals. All initiatives were good but did not achieve the desired results since regular monitoring and impact analysis was missing. Every time a new initiative replaced an old one, with a new name though, it is like old wine in a new bottle.

There are many challenges that should be converted into opportunities to achieve the targets set in the National Health Policy. These are to be achieved by the adoption of the right technology, legislating and enforcing new policies for benefit of have nots. The buzz word of INNOVATION is ringing but it has yet to reach its right place, we are far below in global innovation index. The disruptive, frugal innovations have to achieve the objective of Health For All – an old dictum. The biggest challenge is behavior modification of all sections of the society which needs correction by regular awareness programs and health check-ups in all organizations and institutions including schools and colleges. We all need to change our attitude towards our health to achieve overall holistic health.

We are moving away from our old Indian values, leading to many unhealthy practices, while the western world has adopted Yoga from us, we have copied junk food from them. Let us pledge to move fast to meet our Unmet Needs to achieve Health For All missed in 2000.

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Universal Health: Swachh India, Fit India, New India

Unmet Needs – Leading to Innovation