Corporate India pitches in to ease healthcare accessibility

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The health of a nation depends on the health of its people. Now, CNBC-TV18 puts the spotlight on the stage of rural healthcare. The government's initiatives and endeavors have not made health care facilities accessible to millions of underprivileged Indians. Now, corporate India is trying to change that.

 

In recent years, India's health care sector has made notable strides both, in technology and in scale. With state of the art 5-star hospitals in the metros and highly skilled medical professionals in the country, India is now emerging as a destination for medical tourism. But even though international quality medical treatment is now available to the average Indian, the effects of social and economic inequality remains so profound that the impact on the country's health system is multi fold.

 

Population explosion and unequal distribution of resources has meant little or no excess to quality healthcare for a large chunk of India. The socially underprivileged are unable to access healthcare not just because of economical reasons, but also due to geographical, social or gender bias. The growth of the private healthcare sector makes the gap in rich and poor even more apparent.

 

The ratio of hospital beds to patients in rural areas is 15 times lower than that in urban areas. The ratio of doctors to patients in Indian villages is almost six times lower to that in the metros. This year, the Government has enhanced its spend on health and family welfare by 22% to over Rs 15,000 crore. But, it will be a while before the results began to show.

 

Corporate India's efforts to provide rural healthcare don't just stem from a humanitarian approach to the society that they service, it also makes business sense for them. After all, a healthy workforce is critical to the health of a company.

 

Lets take a look at what work Bajaj Auto is doing in the 38 villages it has adopted across Maharashtra.

 

Like in most regions of rural India, Gosasi is one of those districts in Maharashtra that has no medical facilities for its residents. The closest clinic is on the way to Pune, almost 70 kilometers away. And to travel this distance means a day of labour lost, apart from traveling expenses, doctors fee and medicines. But things changed, since Bajaj Auto's Jankidevi Bajaj Gram Vikas Sanstha drove in.

 

Madhur Bajaj , Vice Chairman at Bajaj Auto said, "Each village is distinct because certain people have some kind of problems, water problems, some don't have schools, some people don't have any healthcare. So each village has got its own distinct identity. It's very easy for us to talk to them and find out what are their priorities."

 

Every day this fully equipped mobile medical van visits one of the 32 districts that Bajaj Auto has adopted to provide medical care. This ranges from regular health checks in OPD to some specialized healthcare.

 

Dr Mrinal Katte, Medical Officer of JBGVS said, "We give service from the newborn to the old aged, but we concentrate on the mother-child healthcare. It means the child which is going to born should be bought to this world with best healthcare. So we take best care of the expecting mother and the newborn child.

 

Not only are medicines and injections provided at minimal cost, Bajaj Auto also caters to the needs of more specialized medical intervention by referring the patients to private nursing homes and often bearing the expenses.

 

Dr Mrinal Katte said, "We refer those patients whose treatment we cannot manage to various rural and private hospitals. We can do only a limited number of investigations here, so even for investigations we refer them to PSC centers or rural hospitals.

 

Every family of this village has also been issued medical cards which they carry with them to the doctor. These cards have past records of their medical treatment for the doctor's use. In order to make the process more sustainable, JBGVS volunteers train women in the village to become health workers who spread the knowledge in the village of hygiene and family planning, and even cure minor illnesses like regular viral and also provide first-aid.

 

According to a health worker, they call all the pregnant women to the mobile clinic for a checkup where good quality healthcare like injections, pills etc. are given, teenage girls, mother-child health care etc are topics which are explained to them.

 

As a result of these efforts, the villagers now have access to medical facilities at their doorstep. This initiative has given the villagers of Gosasi, a hope for a healthier life.

 

Banglore based biotechnology giant, Biocon , spends lots of money to discover new drugs. But what good are breakthroughs if they can't be made accessible to the common man, that's the vision of the founder of Biocon, Kiran Muzumdar Shaw.

 

Kiran Muzumdar Shaw, CMD of Biocon said, "When you look at our own business, we also have to look at affordability as a very important part of our business, in making sure that our people have both, access to our products, which are really about drugs, but also about our drugs being affordable for people around the world."

 

Based on the vicinity of the facilities run by Biocon, are these Biocare units called Arogya Raksha Clinics. They are run with an aim of providing hi-quality, yet affordable health care to the economically weak. Apart from a full time doctor and basic laboratory services, each clinic also has a pharmacy that sells drugs produced by Biocon at the factory price.

 

Since its inception, Biocare has touched the lives of around 40,000 people by investing around Rs 5 crore a year of its promoters personal money. But the larger picture here is not solely providing healthcare facilities as charity, but developing a health micro-insurance scheme.

 

Shaw said, "Today, we have to build a sustainable models. The only way we believe in healthcare that you can build a sustainable model is through a system that is based on reimbursements, a system that is based on insurance. Here we are talking about micro health-insurance, its very similar to a micro finance model, which is again another sustainable model."

 

Though this scheme is yet to gather full momentum, Biocon is going the preventive route rather than just a curative. Here's an example - It's undertaken a project to sanitize the rural communities by providing public conveniences and even building small toilets in the houses of the communities it has undertaken to serve.

 

Suresh Reddy, Resident in Anekal Taluka said, "In our village, the people must build a latrine. We are cooperating with the Biocon facility in my panchayat."

 

And there is more to the Biocon Foundation. Volunteers are bought in to educate children in village schools about health and hygiene. Biocon has also tied up with self-help groups to train village women on such issue.

 

Shilpa a represntative of Biocon Foundation said, "We have four modules, first one is personal hygiene and sanitation, second one is common illness, third is reproductive child health and nutrition and the fourth one is HIV and AIDS."

 

India's largest pharma company Ranbaxy is spreading the message of health and hygiene through rural India. From  Madhya Pradesh to Himachal Pradesh's Paonta Sahib. Let's take a look.

 

India's largest pharmaceutical company, Ranbaxy, operates in around 46 countries and exporting drugs to a 125. Today, it is among the world's top ten global generic manufacturers. It's not just business where Ranbaxy has taken bold initiatives, but also in its approach towards society, In fact its CSR initiatives began as early as 1979, now called Ranbaxy Community Healthcare Society, or RCHS.

 

Operating around their plants Malvinder Mohan Singh, CEO & MD of Ranbaxy Laboratories said, "There is a significant gap if you look at many of the healthcare indices and therefore, the first instant was to address the gap in areas where we have been there for a long time. Today we are covering between 80 to 90 villages, we treat and cover over 200,000 people on an annual basis. So that's really been the scope of the activity today. We have measured the various indices over the last 30 to 40 years and we have seen a very significant improvement in each of those parameters.

 

In rural areas, like MP's Devas district, healthcare facilities were a distant dream. While mobile clinics work best for general OPD's, the biggest concern to most of the families here is the lack of medical attention during child birth and post natal care. To cater to that need, Ranbaxy representatives visit homes with newborn children to provide medical assistance to the families.

 

Meenakshi Singh, Medical Officer of RCHS, Devas said, "Pregnant women don't need have to go all the way to the hospital. We also give healthcare lessons, vaccinations for tetanus and other vaccinations, this helps the people to save money and get the right healthcare."

 

Ranbaxy is also training the women in villages to become midwives. At the RCHS, company representatives teach these women about the do's and don'ts during labour. They are also given medical kits which come in handy during childbirth.

 

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