Health Assurance Plan is Being Worked Out: Vardhan

India will have to follow the middle path in healthcare, shunning both the American and the British models, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan has said. Dr Vardhan, who was on a two-day visit to the city, spoke to Express on a range of health topics from insurance to drug resistant tuberculosis. He also spoke of the need to help the 350 million people who are below poverty line in India. Excerpts:

Are we copying the American model of healthcare in India? Do we all have to get medical insurance?

One cannot have the Obamacare model. However, the spirit is everyone gets medical insurance. Who pays the premium, what are the services, how and where is all being worked out. Neither the American nor the British model of healthcare will suit India. We will have to develop our own path, a middle path which will be good for India. A Universal Health Assurance Plan is being worked out to make at least a few services available.

The poor will have to be helped by the government in paying the premium. The National Health Assurance was a part of the President’s speech recently, was indirectly a part of the budget and the Prime Minister is also keen about it. I have always supported it.

There is a serious shortage of medical specialists as well as medical workers at the Primary Health Centre level in villages. How do you plan to address these shortages?

We strongly feel there is a gross deficiency of medical manpower and must utilise the potential of postgraduate students. We are creating All India institutes of Medical Sciences all over the country. We are converting medical colleges into super specialty hospitals and converting district hospitals into medical colleges. We will open more medical colleges in future.

We feel students of postgraduate courses must do a stint in rural areas. This would be a condition for registration. We will open up the medical sector to more institutions. There is a course of BSc, where students are trained for three years in community medicine which will cover some gaps and strengthen the PHCs. We need to improve our numbers and quality in medical education.

Would you say the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme has failed as tuberculosis patients and multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB cases are increasing?

We are keeping a close watch on the programme as the number of multi-drug resistant TB cases is rising. The programme is strong enough to catch these cases early through its testing facilities for drug resistance. The DOTS programme (Directly Observed Treatment, Short-Course) is a comprehensive package for TB control is also working. We are reviewing the programme. We do have treatment for drug resistant TB. Recently, there was a shortage of adult anti-retroviral therapy (ART) drugs at a centre in Bangalore and the patients had to be given pediatric drugs. There is no shortage. This must have occurred at that centre for a short while but I do not think we are short on ART drugs.