Health: Strategy on public-pvt partnership soon

The government will soon unveil a national strategy on public-private partnership for public health, a senior government official said on Friday.

"We are working on a national strategy on public and private partnership for addressing the concerns of public health," Meenakshi Datta Ghosh, additional secretary, ministry of health and family welfare, said at a healthcare session in the India-ASEAN business summit in New Delhi.

She said to meet the healthcare needs of the world, it was important for private sector to come up and forge alliances with public institutions, which could provide the research backbone.

Ghosh said even state governments had begun to realise the importance of synergy between public and private sector while formulating their health plans.

Highlighting the duplication of efforts in the ongoing research for anti-AIDS vaccine, she said research institutions in the Asian and ASEAN regions could collaborate with each other as it would save costs and efforts.

Speaking on the occasion, Narayan Seshadri, managing director, KPMG Business Advisory Services, said corporates should focus more on the primary healthcare needs as the sector posed a huge unmet demand.

He said apart from primary healthcare, the focus should also be on developing India as a healthcare tourist destination not just for treatment, but for the recuperation period as well.