Author Poonam Muttreja, executive director, Population Foundation of India, said, “Recognising people as partners rather than merely patients is essential to bringing the public into public health. Health systems become more responsive, equitable, and compassionate when citizens participate in the planning, delivery, and accountability of services.”
New Delhi:A new Lancet Commission report outlines a path for a rights-based, citizen-centred health system for India involving innovative financing, regulation and community engagement that delivers accessible, equitable and high-quality care.
Aligning with the country’s broader vision of ‘Viksit Bharat’, a developed and inclusive nation by 2047, the reforms described in the report promote community participation, transparency and equity — key principles of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) — aimed at ensuring high-quality, affordable care for all.
An international team of authors, including those from the US’ Harvard Medical School and the Population Foundation of India, a Delhi-based NGO, emphasise the urgent need to strengthen India’s public healthcare by integrating services across primary, secondary, and tertiary levels, increasing government investments, and harnessing digital technologies.
Author Poonam Muttreja, executive director, Population Foundation of India, said, “Recognising people as partners rather than merely patients is essential to bringing the public into public health. Health systems become more responsive, equitable, and compassionate when citizens participate in the planning, delivery, and accountability of services.”
The most significant finding is a fundamental shift in the conventional narrative of barriers to realising universal health coverage. These are no longer driven by a lack of political will, underfunding, inadequate human resources and physical infrastructure or lack of awareness about health-care services. Indeed, we observe that both the supply and demand for health care has reached unprecedented levels.
Instead, uneven quality of care, inefficiencies in spending, fragmented delivery, inadequate design and implementation of financial protection programmes, and poor governance emerge as key challenges. Promoting a rights-based approach to health, the Commission calls for a healthcare delivery system grounded in comprehensive primary health care and increasing people’s participation in the planning, delivery and monitoring of health services.
Healthcare reforms driven by decentralisation, multi-stakeholder collaboration and continuous learning are required to cater to India’s vast diversity, the team said.
Improvements to the country’s health system must go beyond technical fixes, which requires a strong political will and leadership to ensure accountability, it added.
Established in December 2020, the Lancet Commission on a citizen-centred health system for India identifies reforms needed to realise the vision.
A diverse range of expertise and existing and new research were drawn upon for arriving at recommendations, the team said.
“Our clarion call is for an integrated, citizen-centred health-care delivery system that is publicly financed and publicly provided as the primary vehicle for UHC, while shaping the private sector to leverage its strengths,” the authors wrote.