OPPI holds seminar on challenges and future roadmap for healthcare access in India

Top policy makers and healthcare stakeholders offer rich insights for achieving efficient and affordable healthcare access for all

The Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) held a seminar in Mumbai, titled ‘Access to Healthcare – Challenges and the Way Forward.’ The event brought together distinguished professionals, acclaimed experts, policy makers and other stakeholders from the Indian healthcare industry and allied sectors to share their vision and key insights about how the overall status of healthcare access can be improved in the country.

In his welcome address, Tapan Ray, Director General, OPPI, deliberated upon the healthcare consumption trends in India. Setting the agenda for the day, he stated: “Access to healthcare is a subject of immense significance for India particularly with the increasing incidences of new diseases in the country, from cancer and diabetes to chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular diseases. We need to ensure that Indians not only get prompt and easy physical access to healthcare facilities but also that they can also afford the treatment. This can only be done by reducing the out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure in India, which is currently as high as 75 per cent. The government needs to move quickly on plans for universal healthcare access and renew its focus on public health infrastructure and the healthcare delivery system.”

Providing insights into the Indian healthcare market to improve access, Amit Backliwal, Managing Director, IMS Health Information & Consulting Services, said, “Inadequate resourcing and financing of the public sector health infrastructure negatively impacts the availability of healthcare workers and creates a poor perception of public health facilities. This forces the rural poor to seek costlier treatment options, which in turn adversely impacts overall healthcare access. This study is an important step in advancing the cause of healthcare access in India. It helps develop a road map to improve availability, affordability and performance levels.”

Delivering the inaugural address, Ranjit Shahani, President, OPPI, and Vice Chairman & Managing Director, Novartis, said, “While the IMS Study provides a valuable information tool for policy makers and the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry as a whole, the presence of so many stakeholders here today for the seminar signals an acceptance of the need to align efforts to advance healthcare access for all Indians.”

A recent ground-breaking study ‘Understanding Healthcare Access in India – What is the Current State?‘ by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics has revealed that the out-of-pocket expenditure for both outpatient and inpatient treatments in the country can be reduced by as much as 45 per cent by addressing four critical dimensions of healthcare access:

1. Physical accessibility and location of healthcare facilities
2. Availability and capacity of needed resources
3. Quality and functionality of service required for patient treatment
4. Affordability of treatment relative to a patient’s income

The comprehensive IMS Study, based on a survey of nearly 15,000 households across 12 states along with 1,000 doctors and experts, has revealed that while progress has been made in India over the past decade by both public and private sector initiatives, significant challenges persist in providing quality healthcare on an equitable, accessible and affordable basis across all regions and communities.

Other key findings of the IMS study include:

• The provision of healthcare services in India is skewed toward urban centers and the private sector.
• Physical reach of any healthcare facility is a challenge in rural areas, particularly for patients with chronic ailments.
• Private healthcare facilities are being used by an increasing proportion of patients due to gaps in the quality and availability of public facilities.
• Availability of doctors is a key reason for selecting private facility outpatient treatments.
• Patients using private facilities face greater affordability challenges.
• Improving the availability of doctors and services with quality improvement in public healthcare facilities would drive the greatest reduction in patient out-of-pocket costs.
• Medicine costs as a proportion of out-of-pocket healthcare expenses have shown a decreasing trend over last two decades however they remain high
• Making free drugs available in public facilities without addressing the existing bottlenecks will not help improve access or reduce out-of pocket expenditure on health
• Effective financing mechanisms are a critical requirement to making healthcare more affordable for patients.
• The challenges are different for different strata of society and hence any policy framework that wishes to address access challenges should be flexible enough to recognise the different needs.

EP News Bureau – Mumbai