Government Targets vaccinating the country’s entire adult population by the Year-end

Highlighting the success in the front of challenges posed by COVID19, the Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare today said that over 99 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the country and the government has set a target of vaccinating the country’s entire adult population by end of the year.

Virtually addressing theFICCI Annual Healthcare Excellence Awards Ceremony here today, she also said that under the “Make in India” initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, presently India is one of the leading countries in global medical devices market in the world.DrPawar emphasized that the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted gaps in the Indian healthcare system which offers a distinctive opportunity to transform it through the private-public partnership.

The Minister said that PPP in healthcare has the potential to resolve the issues and ensure healthcare inclusion for the Indian masses and create a sustainable long-term model. “The way India has shown its capability in running the world’s largest immunization campaign and manufacturing the vaccine, makes us believe that a new era in the cooperation of private-private partnership is about to start in healthcare sector to build a stronger healthcare ecosystem," she added.

“The governments’ relentless efforts have resulted in the launching of various nationwide programs for prevention, control and eradication of communicable and non-communicable diseases and improvement of maternal and child health,” said the Minister.

“The efforts of the government is to work holistically with an emphasis in preventive care while giving priority to modern treatment facilities,” she said. Calling for bridging differences in health infrastructure between urban and rural India, she said the government aims to reduce the cost of treating the poor and increasing the number of doctors in the country. “The government is working towards a goal of 1.5 million health and wellness in the remote areas,” said the Minister.

C K Mishra, Former Secretary, Government of India said, India has demonstrated its manufacturing capacity during COVID-19 and unique healthcare handling capacity. He further mentioned that FICCI has played the role of a bridge between the industry and government. Congratulating the winners of HEAL the former Secretary said, their journey has not been simple, but their contribution is unique.

“We as a health community need to find unique local situations for unique geographies and patient care. “I hope the healthcare industry must come together to provide world-class healthcare service locally,” he said.

On public-private partnership he said that it took an unpleasant pandemic to show what the meaning of collaboration of the private is and public sectors. “This is our first and most impressive success story of public-private partnership and we must continue this collaboration,” said Mishra. He further urged the government to create a platform for the private sector to come together in a systematic and institutionalized way to join hands with the government. “We need to move towards being patient-centric rather than disease centric” he stated.

Subhrakant Panda, Vice President, FICCI said an impartial evaluation based on initiative, sustainability, scalability, and impact have made these awards the definitive recognition for contribution to healthcare in the country, said FICCI Vice President.  “Our aspiration to be an economic powerhouse must have world-class healthcare as its foundation and the government of India’s enhanced outlay for healthcare with the steps taken for universal healthcare will be truly transformative,” said Panda.

The FICCI Annual Healthcare Awards aims to encourage and recognize the tremendous contributions of the healthcare providers by innovating for increased efficiency, affordability, and improved performance of healthcare delivery.