In an effort to strengthen health systems and explore emergent avenues and platforms for collaboration between various agencies and stakeholders in the Northeast region, the North East Health Care Summit 2017 was held on September 8-9 in Gangtok, Sikkim.
The second edition of the summit was inaugurated by Arjun Kumar Ghatani, Minister, Healthcare, Human Services and Family Welfare, Sikkim along with PD Rai, Member of Parliament from Sikkim.
“Health records and parameters in Sikkim are the best amongst northeastern states, for which I would congratulate our Chief Minister for his visionary leadership because of which the government-backed Comprehensive Annual and Total Check-up for Healthy Sikkim (CATCH Sikkim) now reaches out to people even in the remotest areas of the state. But poor healthcare services in the Northeast and the need to enhance manpower, including setting up of more medical colleges in the region the requirement of the day,” Ghatani said while addressing the event.
The event, organised by the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) in partnership with the Ministry of Development of the North East Region (MDoNER), the Government of Sikkim and the Sir Thutob Namgyal Memorial Hospital (STNM), highlighted key issues in today’s evolving healthcare scenario pertinent to Northeastern parts of the country.
“There is an urgent need to review the progress of schemes sanctioned by centre or the NEC towards the improvement of healthcare services in the region, especially infrastructure, in addition to finding out better ways and means to remove health problems and inaccessibility to quality healthcare especially in rural areas of the region,” the minister added.
Ghatani also appealed to the attending delegates especially attending health officials from other NE states and other organisations to work towards the improvement of healthcare services in the region, and come-up with a time-bound whitepaper which can be implemented immediately.
According to Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Director General ICMR, “Northeast is one of the most vibrant regions in India, but its health indicators have unfortunately lagged behind rest of India on many counts. With so much technological and infrastructure advancements, it is time to bring about a rapid improvement in the public health indicators, especially in light of the renewed commitment by the central government towards the entire North-east region.”
Lamenting that there is an absence of private sector interest and investment in Northeast, and hoping that the central government under its Look East Policy will allocate increased resources towards healthcare in this region, Rai said, “I am happy that this summit has brought together political leaders, policy makers, healthcare professionals and implementers once again on a common platform to deliberate strategies for meeting public health challenges for the northeastern region. There is an urgent need to engage amongst ourselves in the sister states for enhancing public health and advancing technology in this region, ensuring better reach, quality and coverage of health services.”
Jayanto Narayan Choudhury, vice president, Public Health Foundation of India, said, “Already active in the region through its various capacity building and training programmes, Public Health Foundation of India, and its affiliate Indian Institute of Public Health in Shillong, aims to improve health outcomes in the entire Northeast region through educational, research, training, policy and advocacy activities. With a view to complement various state and national level health initiatives, PHFI will happy to actively assist all the 8 NE states to come up with a forward looking plan to improve the health scenario in the entire region, and so that NE becomes a major healthcare hub for entire Southeast Asia.”
Dr K Bhandari, Director-General-cum Secretary Health, Sikkim, also spoke at the event.
“The 2nd North east Healthcare summit comes at a time when we are thick and thin into our centenary celebrations. Through this summit we further commit ourselves at STNM to aim higher towards providing high quality super-speciality patient care services, and undertake medical and community Health Research further. Through the outcomes of the deliberations, we will augment the vision of the summit to develop Human Resources in all fields related to health and facilitate the North Eastern States in framing better health policies as envisioned in the National Health Policy 2017 by the centre,” he said.
This year’s 2nd Northeast Healthcare summit concentrated on emerging health concerns in the region with a special emphasis on the current scenario in North East and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The themes for this year’s summit were:
Mental Health & Substance Abuse
Non-Communicable Diseases
Health Policy
Service Delivery & Health Systems Strengthening
Environmental Health
The key takeaway from the summit evolves around strong political will for a robust health system, adoption of people – public centric approaches, community involvement, convergence of programs, strengthening of existing system, accountability, redirecting focus as per needs of the states.
