EHA

16 February 2006

The Annual meet of Medico Friends Circle (MFC) was held at Vellore, from January 27-29, 2006. The Medico Friend Circle is the member of Jan Swasth Abhiyan which has taken up the issue of ‘Right to Health Care Campaign.’ The last MFC annual meet focused on the theme of ‘Right to Health Care’ and so in continuation this year the theme was ‘Cost & Quality of Health Care.

The stage for discussion was set by Dr. Binayak Sen, who threw light on the increasing cases of Human right violation and crushing the voices of poor. He posed the challenge that in such adverse atmosphere is it possible to materialize health for all and to address the issues of cost and quality? The discussion was followed by issues of Global Public Private Partnership Initiatives, politics of large scale vertical public health programmes, regulation of drug pricing under new regime of patent, Public health sector vs. private sector and so on. The main contention was to identify issues that prohibit the majority of the population in the country to access quality health care at affordable cost.

Dr. Vinod Shah started the next day’s discussions with a presentation on how cost of health care affects the economic status of poor, supported by statistics. He presented a World Bank report that states that every year 25% of all hospitalized Indians slip below the poverty line because of hospital expenses alone. Other concerns raised were quality of medical education, lack of family physicians and the dependency on investigations. After in-depth discussion over issues related to cost of health care, solutions came forward from the experiences of people around the country. Speakers & participants shared their experiences on avoidance of unnecessary investigation, unnecessary medication, use of simpler/cheaper material, use of certain management techniques, continuous training of doctors, nurses & paramedics, community insurance, involvement of community, strengthening of public health structure & regulation of private structures, and pro-poor regulations.

Somesh Pratap, Project Director of EHA's Community Health Project in Champa Chattisgarh participated in the meet. He was part of the delegation which presented the population policy of Chattisgarh to the State Secretary. Somesh observed that the theme was very relevant to EHA and its ministry of serving the poor. At a time when society is struggling to develop an alternative model that is people centric, quality assuring and cost effective, EHA with its vast experience can effectively contribute to the public health of India.

- Somesh Pratap, Project Director
Champa Community Health Project