Three major issues presently plaguing the Healthcare sector

There is a gross mismatch in demand and supply of Healthcare service delivery in North-eastern region. While majority of the Healthcare facilities are concentrated in and around Urban locations, most of the population reside in rural Geographies. Inability of the Government in independently managing this inadequacy is apparent and hence, there is a huge role to be played by the Private players in bridging the Demand & supply gap.

Healthcare is seen as one of the major reasons because of which more and more people are pulled below the poverty line each year. Not even 10 per cent of the population is covered by any kind of health insurance, which burdens them for out-of-pocket spending.

The Government should take effective steps to ensure increase in the affordability to these health insurance schemes, especially amongst the rural population. With higher insurance penetration in the country, the accessibility to quality healthcare services would greatly improve.

Ensuring Quality in rendering Healthcare services pose as one of the biggest challenge for Healthcare providers. Unavailability of qualified and trained Healthcare professionals remains as one of the major challenges in the North-eastern region of India. There are innumerable cases of medical errors evidenced across the healthcare sector in North-east and lack of Standardization remains the major threat in overcoming this challenge. With patients becoming more aware, there is an immediate need for standardization and quality assurance of Healthcare services.