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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Universal health coverage is the best prescription -K Srinath Reddy

Universal health coverage is the best prescription -K Srinath Reddy

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published Published on Dec 7, 2017   modified Modified on Dec 7, 2017
-The Hindu

UHC provides the framework in which the issues of access, quality and cost can be integrated

Three recent incidents involving the health-care sector in Delhi have sparked widespread outrage over the alleged mercenary motives and callous conduct of high-profile corporate hospitals. Two cases involved children with dengue who died soon after leaving these hospitals in a serious condition after their families were presented huge hospitalisation and treatment bills. The third case involved a live premature baby being “declared dead” and handed over to the parents wrapped in plastic.

Distrust and despair

Questions have been raised, and rightly so, about the lack of professional standards in terms of competence and compassion. The medical bills, running into huge figures, also stoked anger at perceived corporate addiction to profit maximisation. The government, the hospital managements and the Indian Medical Association have begun inquiries. Even as these go on, there is deep public distrust and despair over health care in private and public sector hospitals.

Three major issues are involved when we assess health care: access, quality and cost. Each of these needs to be addressed with clarity, and not in isolation. Solutions have to be those that fit into a common system architecture, or a system best designed and delivered as Universal Health Coverage (UHC), now enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Access to readily reachable, trustworthy and affordable health care is a major challenge before poorly served rural areas and overcrowded urban areas. Also, the inadequacy of organised primary health services here is compounded by a weakness at the intermediate level of care in many district hospitals and nursing homes. While corporate hospitals boast of high quality advanced care and compete with each other for a significant share of medical tourism, they are mostly inaccessible to the rural population and the urban poor. Government institutions of advanced care suffer from low budgets and a lack of managerial talent.

Steps to improving access

The pathway to improving access lies in expanding the network of public sector facilities at all levels. This calls for higher levels of public financing, investment in training and incentivised placements of more health personnel and improved management through the creation of a public health management cadre. These measures have been envisaged in the National Health Policy, 2017 and need urgent and earnest implementation. Health-care providers in the private and voluntary sectors should be empanelled to fill the gaps through carefully crafted contracting mechanisms that best serve public interest.

Quality of care is determined by the extent to which appropriate care is provided in each clinical context. Here there must be an emphasis on the benefit and safety of tests and treatment, and ensuring that satisfaction levels of patients, families, care providers in the nature of institutional processes as well as human interactions are met. This requires ensuring conformity to accepted scientific and ethical standards. Here, the Clinical Establishments Act is a good beginning, in moving health-care facilities towards registration, ensuring compliance with essential standards of equipment and performance, adopting standard management guidelines, grievance redress mechanisms, and respecting encoded patient rights.

Please click here to read more.

The Hindu, 7 December, 2017, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/universal-health-coverage-is-the-best-prescription/article21284698.ece?homepage=true


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