Public-Private Partnerships Are Important for Improving Healthcare Access in Rural India-Technology News, Firstpost

Mangesh Wange and Manish ChokhandreSeptember 29, 2020 17:17:17 IST

In India, 1 in 100 children suffer from congenital heart disease (CHD) of varying severity. These children need dedicated health care facilities, infrastructure, and a trained workforce that can meet their health care needs. CHD surgery is a costly issue. As a result, only 30% of 1.2-raku children born with heart defects are diagnosed on time and treated annually. Diagnosis of CHD also involves mortality, morbidity, and a high risk of becoming disabled.

Parent identification, counseling and mobilization, especially in rural areas, is another complexity that makes it difficult to resolve this issue. Stigma, delayed referrals leading to complications and poor outcomes, and comorbidities (such as malnutrition) can make surgery difficult or complicated. Parents often cannot keep up with capital-intensive treatments.

Of the children born with a heart defect of Rs 12,000, only 30 percent are diagnosed on time and treated annually.

Charities that exist for the benefit of social taboos, myths, gender bias, lack of knowledge about existing government programs, and the economically vulnerable parts of society make it difficult to intervene in a timely manner. The number of public hospitals that provide low-cost medical care is very small and in between. Public hospitals see a large number of patients and have a waiting list ranging from months to years. Most heart centers are in the private sector and the Indian public may not be affordable. These are a handful of factors that contribute to the exacerbation of children suffering from CHD due to delayed or unavailable treatments available to these children.

As a country, this issue can be addressed if the underprivileged are supported at the right time. Given the need for high resources and expertise, this issue is best addressed by the cooperation of all stakeholders, including affected parents, social organizations, front-line healthcare professionals, governments, healthcare professionals and hospitals. It can be solved.

Nonprofits and development partners can work with front-line workers to support early screening and intervention. They are in regular contact with the community and can play an important role in addressing the challenges facing parents and children. They can also establish links to higher facilities for the identification and treatment of children with CHD. Frontline workers and hospitals also need to connect these children to existing government plans. Therefore, public-private partnerships (PPPs) can play an important role in addressing the seriousness of domestic CHD.

The number of public hospitals offering low-cost medical care is negligible, with waiting lists ranging from months to years. Representative image.Image Credit: Wikipedia

A successful Maharashtra partnership in this effort was the Suede Foundation and the Maharashtra Government, working with the Pediatric and Congenital Heart Center at Wokhart Hospital. Through the intervention, free medical care was provided to children in many disadvantaged communities in the state. This expansion of CHD’s children’s medical services was carried out in seven blocks in the Rigad district (Poladpur, Mahad, Mangaon, Tara, Masala, Shribaldan and Sudagad).

The public-private partnership has enabled us to provide professional care to approximately 146 children who have been severely affected by CHD. They would not have been able to afford diagnosis and treatment. The partnership has been working hard for the past five years. This time, 704 symptomatic children were identified and 146 children with varying degrees of complex heart disease were operated on. Treatment included surgery of varying complexity and catheter-based intervention under professional care.

In 2019-20, a study backed by Wockhardt Hospital in seven blocks showed that the burden of illness had dropped to negligible, if not zero, levels. This shows that such public-private associations are very likely to be able to reform their health systems, especially in rural India.

Mangesh Wange is the CEO of the Swades Foundation and Dr Manish Chokhandre is a pediatric cardiologist consultant at Wockhardt Hospital.