Edition 7 | March 21, 2022
Dear Friends,

We are delighted to present to you the next edition of the monthly newsletter by the Lancet Citizens' Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System. In this edition, the scholars at the Commission breakdown the factors on building resilient and equitable health systems, including examining the trends in the Indian biotech industry, an imbalanced workforce in the Indian healthcare system, making medical education accessible to a wider talent pool and more. Further, this edition reflects on the accomplishments and best practices of the Commission since its launch. As a Citizens’ Commission, we invite the public to participate, provide input and continue to engage with this new initiative.
This Month's Highlight
Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School, Director of the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard, discusses the work of the Lancet Citizens’ Commission and, more generally, his insights on building resilient and equitable health systems in Harvard Center for International Development's #BeyondCOVID podcast series.
News from the Commission
Since its launch, the Lancet Citizens' Commission has been collaborating on designing a roadmap for reinventing health care in India. One year later, the Commission reflects on what it has achieved and what remains for UHC in the coming years.
Views & Opinions 

Removing the age cap for NEET aspirants makes medical education accessible to a wider talent pool. Some may even have specific training that can aid them in better healthcare delivery, writes K Srinath Reddy.

Where is the biotech ecosystem in India headed? Can we predict its future? How would the ecosystem look in a decade’s time? We assume that looking at the past may inform us about what we need to do to gain speed to reach the high noon of the Indian biotech industry, write Satya Dash and Vijay Chandru.

India's healthcare system has an imbalanced workforce that renders the system dysfunctional and handicaps those health workers that already exist in sufficient numbers, writes Siddhesh Zadey.
Announcement
Currently the chairman of the interdisciplinary AYUSH R&D task force on Covid-19, Dr Patwardhan has been a distinguished academician for nearly 40 years. He is also a former vice-chairman of the UGC.
Commission Members in Spotlight 
"Public financing for health as a proportion to the GDP has been extremely low since decades. This is one of the foremost challenges in achieving UHC in India. Equitable access to universal health care cannot be reached without enhancement of public funding. India cannot afford not to allocate more tax funding for health. Education of health professionals with a focus on quality, competence and integrity is essential to the functioning of the health system. Policies for health science education need to be streamlined and revamped to be able to meet health needs in the community and to achieve UHC" says Thelma Narayan, Director, Academics & Policy Action, SOCHARA
"Achieving UHC is going to need several significant mindset shifts by all stakeholders. Each design choice is critical – from the role of the regulators to the incentives of the private providers and the health seeking behaviors of consumers. From my perspective, the right framework to govern and shift private provider behaviors is made significantly more complex by the extremely fragmented nature of supply. It will be a massive endeavour to bridge the execution gap in an environment where organized players have a very small share of the market," says Tejasvi Ravi, Lead, LGTLightstone


Featured Partner
DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance (India Alliance) is an independent, dynamic public charity that funds research in health and biomedical sciences in India. India Alliance is providing overall advocacy support to the Commission.
Help us develop a roadmap to achieve universal health coverage in India by visiting our website: https://www.citizenshealth.in/


We love hearing back from you! Please send your comments, suggestions, and contributions for these newsletters, including research highlights and published features to info@citizenshealth.in