NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, December 16, 2016

The government urged private health care providers to set up centres in semi-rural and rural areas in order to bridge the disparity in availability of healthcare services between urban and rural areas.

“We need poor people to have accessibility to private hospitals in rural areas and for that we have to explore and develop models that can provide healthcare at affordable cost,” health minister JP Nadda said while addressing India Health Summit, an annual flagship event on healthcare, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

He also said that providers should make services affordable, while also maintaining viability of their businesses.

Such an arrangement would help in plugging the health gaps in the country, he said.

Emphasizing on the need for public private partnership in the healthcare sector, Nadda said there is an urgent need for strengthening healthcare in India with well-defined terms of reference (ToR) of partnership with the private sector. “Time has come when we must freeze the ToR that are meaningful and deliver results,” he said.