‘Assam Making Big Strides in Healthcare Delivery'

Meaningful partnership between public and private institutions needs to be built up as it will ultimately determine success of healthcare schemes like Ayushman Bharat, according to J V N Subramanyam, Mission Director, Department of Health & Family Welfare, Government of Assam.

Participating in 2nd Healthcare Innovation Summit, Hyderabad, recently Subramanyam underlined the significance of Public Private Partnership (PPP) as he shared Assam has been in news for a number of effective and much-needed initiatives undertaken by the Government to make healthcare delivery accessible and affordable. He said, “Unless private sector understands public health problems, a meaningful partnership would not emerge.”

“Assam is the biggest State, having almost 70 percent landmass of North-East. We share national and international borders. The State has 3.2 crore population, almost same as of Telangana State. We have 40 percent urban population and 12 percent tribal with lots of ethnic and demographic challenges. Almost 20 percent of our landmass is covered by tea garden,” he said while delivering a speech at the summit held in February.

He said there is a huge scope of private partnership in terms of tele-consultation and other modes to improve healthcare accessibility in the State.

Shedding light on healthcare challenges and how the State Government has taken things headon to improve the situation, he said: “Assam has highest maternal mortality rate amongst States. We have one in every three children stunted.”

“But I am happy so much work has been done in last 10 years, which leads to a substantial improvement on Maternal Mortality Rare (MMR). It has reduced to 237 from 480 per lakh live births. Things are improving, but still a lot needs to be done. Partnership could help on these fronts.”