Nath for public-private partnership in Healthcare

New Delhi, Nov 14 (UNI) Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath has stressed on developing new infrastructure for the healthcare sector in view of the tremendous opportunities that are available for public-private partnership.

Speaking at the 4th India Health Summit 'Healthcare Engagement: Strategies and partnerships' here today, Mr Nath said Large windows of opportunities are opening up. ''To give just one example, Indian medical tourism was estimated at 350 million dollar in 2006 and this has the potential to grow into a 2 billion dollar industry by 2012.'' Mr Nath pointed that there are five areas for government and organized industry action in the healthcare sector, these are to create low-cost, high-quality facilities, with a focus on underserved areas, to work towards creating standards for high-quality healthcare, to invest in training and developing healthcare manpower, to work with health insurers to improve coverage and the most important is to create public-private partnerships in healthcare.

According to the joint study by CII and McKinsey on this sector, Shri Kamal Nath informed, ''During the 1990s, Indian healthcare grew at a compound annual rate of 16 per cent. Today the total value of the sector is more than 34 billion dollar.'' ''This translates to 34 dollar per capita, or roughly 6 per cent of GDP. By 2012, India's healthcare sector is projected to grow to nearly 40 billion dollar,'' the minister added.

The 2-day Summit has been organised jointly by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Indian Healthcare Federation.

UNI