Health Matters: Planning, Prevention & Policy
VIEW EVENT DETAILSBy Invitation Only
Disease-care is widely and erroneously referred to as “healthcare”. While healthcare is the labour-intensive system where doctors, laboratories, clinics and hospitals form the visible infrastructure for medical care; public health is the invisible or policy aspect of this infrastructure, operating to alleviate social factors and environmental determinants that cause diseases in communities.
The private healthcare system in India is highly regarded in the world for its quality, relatively cheaper rates (by global standards) and importantly its competency to produce generic drugs. It is also overwhelmingly preferred both in rural and urban India despite high out of pocket expenses and low insurance penetration. According to a World Health Organization report, private healthcare accounts for almost 74% of healthcare expenditure in the country. This can be attributed to the inadequacy in the public health apparatuses with less than 2% of the GDP allocated to public health services. Another factor is the doctor population ratio, at 1:1668 as per the current population estimate of 1.32 billion according to the Medical Council of India.
In the 2018 Union Budget, the Government of India took steps with the launch of the National Health Protection Scheme to provide universal healthcare to disadvantaged citizens by allocating a medical cover of up to INR 500,000 to 40% of the population (or an estimated 10 crore families). This move will, one hopes, address the need for quality healthcare to be accessible to all sections of society. To provide long term solutions, it is crucial to look beyond just medical treatment, to examining the social, cultural and economic conditions that produce disease in vulnerable populations. Join us as we talk to Dr. Sandro Galea, Dean of the School of Public Health, Boston University, Preetha Reddy, Vice Chairperson of Apollo Hospitals, and Dr. Priya Balasubramaniam Kakkar, Senior Public Health Specialist, Public Health Foundation of India, to discuss how implementation of policies can be planned and how models such as public-private partnerships can work for public health.
Dr. Sandro Galea, in addition to being a physician and epidemiologist, is Dean and Robert A. Knox Professor at Boston University School of Public Health. He is a leading voice in the emerging field of population health science and has published more than 700 scientific journal articles, 50 chapters and 13 books. He is past president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Epidemiological Society. He has received several lifetime achievement awards for his research, including the Rema Lapouse Award from the American Public Health Association and the Robert S. Laufer, PhD, Memorial Award from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.
Preetha Reddy is Vice Chairperson of Apollo Hospitals. In addition to her official responsibilities at Apollo Hospitals, she also works closely with the Government of India to advance policy decisions on healthcare. She is a member of the India-US and India-Malaysia CEOs Forum. A nominated Member of CSIR, she is on the Governing Council of NATHEALTH. She also leads and directs several social projects like SACHi (Save a Child's Heart Initiative) which supports the diagnosis and treatment of underprivileged children with congenital heart diseases. She received the Lifetime Achievement award for distinguished service in the field of Social Science from the Loyola Forum for Historical Research and the 'People CEO Awards - Women Leadership' by The National HRD Network.
Dr. Priya Balasubramaniam Kakkar is Senior Public Health Scientist at the Public Health Foundation of India and Director of the PHFI Universal Health Initiative - one of India's pioneering health policy exercises on health system reform. Her research interests span urban health, universal health coverage policy and health technology innovation directed at strengthening health systems in low and middle income countries. She also frequently advises on health systems and policy to numerous organizations such as the World Bank, World Health Organization, USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and many others.
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Registration is at 6:30 PM, programme begins at 7 PM.
Please note that this programme is by invitation only. To participate, please email [email protected]