Towards affordable health care for all
Over the last two years, Madhya Pradesh government has been offering free medicines and diagnostic services to people in the state run hospitals and dispensaries. If you think that must create a huge burden on the state budget, you are wrong. After watching Satyamev Jayate’s episode on healthcare ‘Every Life is Precious’ in season one, the government decided to provide generic medicines to even the most remote villages. “We wanted to launch something for the entire state. Universal health coverage that was affordable to both the people and the government. That’s when we saw Satyamev Jayate and realized that generic medicines offer the same quality and efficiency at 75 percent cheaper pricing,” explains Pravir Krishn, the Principal Secretary - Health who is spearheading this programme. “So automatically the state budget dropped from about 600 crores to about 200 crores and we could launch it in the entire state instead of a pilot project in some places,” he adds.
Today over 2000 centres offer over 454 types of generic medicines for free. The government hopes to set up at least 52,000 centres in villages across Madhya Pradesh. Training programmes were held for all staff and doctors and entire demand-supply chain is maintained through computer records. According to Mr. Krishn today over four lakh people use services and medicines from these hospitals.