Government Is Committed To Reducing Out Of Pocket Expenses On Healthcare: Anupriya Patel

The Minister of State for Health & Family Welfare, Mrs. Anupriya Patel addressing at the inauguration of the DHR-ICMR- iDSI International Workshop on ‘Health Technology Assessment-Awareness and Topic Selection’, in New Delhi on July 25, 2016. The Minister of State for Health & Family Welfare, Mr. Faggan Singh Kulaste, the DG (ICMR), Dr. Soumya Swaminathan and other dignitaries are also seen.

International Workshop On Health Technology Assessment Inaugurated

New Delhi (PIB-GR-TYP-BIN): Mr. Faggan Singh Kulaste and Smt Anupriya Patel, Ministers of State for Health and Family Welfare inaugurated the international workshop on ‘Health Technology Assessment (HTA)’, on July 25.

Mrs. Anupriya Patel, Minister of State (HFW) said that Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is the need of the hour for India and HTA can be a potent solution for this. The Government is very keen and has already started a journey towards achieving this. She further added that we need to increase health spending in order to reduce the out of pocket spending of the common masses in the country which is presently very high and most of it goes for buying medicines. This is a serious concern for the Government and it is committed towards HTA that will address this. She also said that HTA will help to shift towards a evidence-based policymaking. She r added that the insights and valuable experiences of NICE (UK) and HiTAP (Thailand) will help to framing an effective UHC.

(Source: PIB/GR/TYP/BIN/USPA/WN/IAIJ)