Health system can be strengthened by comprehensive changes to its building blocks: India at UN

India has said that the health system can be strengthened through comprehensive changes to policies, regulations and relationships across its building blocks that motivate positive changes in behaviour of service providers and users.

India's Deputy Permanent Representative Ambassador K Nagaraj Naidu stressed here on Wednesday that there was a need to be cautious about commercialisation of health services, saying a strong public health system is needed to act as a guarantor.

"Strengthening the health system can be accomplished through comprehensive changes to policies and regulations and relationships across building blocks in the health system that allow more effective use of resources and motivate positive changes in behaviour of service providers and users," Naidu said.

Speaking in the UN General Assembly on 'Global Health and Foreign Policy', Naidu underscored that both public and private sectors had a role to play in building stronger health systems.

"However, we need to be cautious about commercialisation of health services. A strong public health system is needed to act as a guarantor," he said.

Highlighting several measures taken in India to reform the healthcare system, including the the National Health Protection Scheme, providing 'Clean Cooking Gas' to underprivileged families and the 'Fit India' and 'Eat Right' movements, Naidu said the country's holistic approach to healthcare with public-private partnership provided a unique model for the developing world.

India is also developing drugs and therapeutics as well as practices and policies that provide solutions to local and global health system challenges, he said.

"We saw the transformative potential of affordability when Indian pharmaceutical companies supplied medicines to HIV/AIDS patients in Africa for less than a dollar a day in early years of this millennium," he said, adding that today a large proportion of the antiretroviral drugs used globally to combat HIV/AIDS are supplied by Indian pharmaceutical firms.

India is the not only the largest provider of generic drugs globally, but also caters to over 60 per cent of global demand for various vaccines, he said.

"In India it is the general belief that health and wellness depend on a delicate balance between the mind, body, and spirit. The world has come to recognise the value of this holistic approach. We are not just fighting diseases, we are promoting good health," Naidu said.

"If the issue of inclusivity is at the core of this agenda then it cannot be achieved by ignoring traditional and holistic medical systems," he said