Healthcare needs government, private partnership: Experts

To provide quality healthcare, the government, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies should come together, a group of experts said here Sunday.

India Health Progress (IHP), a healthcare forum brought together experts at a conference to discuss and deliberate 'Access to Healthcare'.

"About 85 percent of healthcare costs are paid by the end consumer. To reduce this burden, innovative models of partnership amongst government, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies need to be worked out to provide better access," Sundeep Kumar, head, corporate and public affairs, Novartis, said at the conference.

"We need to explore business models that tackle issues specific to our country, including public-private partnership, social entrepreneurship and patient assistance programmes. Innovation in healthcare can be a game changer. However, the cost of innovation needs to be borne by someone, which could be the government too," said Amit Kapoor, chairman, Institute for Competitiveness India.

Highlighting that mass awareness is important because even if the treatment is free, there is no guarantee that the people will avail these.