More private investment needed in healthcare industry for better economic growth: Former MoHFW secretary CK Mishra

The government needs to take initiatives to spur investment in health sector and encourage participation by private players to drive the country's economic growth, said CK Mishra, former secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), on Tuesday.

Speaking at a panel discussion on Healthcare Transformation: Driving India’s Economic Growth, organised by FICCI in Delhi, he mentioned that the government needs to be an enabler and consistent policy maker to ensure better private investment in the healthcare industry for sustained economic growth. With a healthy population, economic growth will naturally come.  

He stressed that 2017 health policy equally focuses on public and private spending on health.

“Incentivising (for private investment on healthcare) should happen and not happening is a matter of worry,” Mishra said and emphasised that the government needs to focus more on medical tourism.

“The potential to grow through medical tourism has not been mapped . Medical tourism will provide immediate funding and contribute to growth in Indian economy,” he said.

Although, NITI Aayog said that several policies have been in place to ensure better economic growth in the healthcare system, the same has not been implemented by the hospitals and other medical fraternities.

VK Paul, member, NITI Aayog, stressed that there is a lack of active participation in the sector as he called for increased investment in developing private health infrastructure for expanding the coverage. He highlighted that the government did propose converting private hospitals to medical colleges but "there has been no concrete response".

He mentioned that NITI has designed schemes and policies related to health as and when needed, but due to the lack of active participation from other players, the success could not be mapped properly. He sought cooperation from FICCI and other stakeholders to contribute actively in toe policy making and designing schemes and share feedback at regular intervals so that it can be improvised further.

According to NITI Aayog, the government has made an investment of Rs 200 crore for each district.