PHI convened a consultation on 16th Nov, 2019, at IIM Udaipur, with the purpose of bringing together academics and practitioners to generate better understanding on financing primary healthcare.

Low public investments in health in India have implications on the availability and access to quality healthcare. The dearth of good quality services affect access to care, especially for the marginalized populations. The dependence on private healthcare, therefore, leads to greater out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE), with around 18% of the households facing catastrophic health expenditures that push them into debt-traps. The healthcare spectrum of the country comprises several private (for-profit and not-for-profit) initiatives providing high quality primary healthcare services to the underserved and marginalized communities. There is significant scope for such initiatives to supplement the services of the public health system to contribute to universal coverage of primary healthcare in the country.

Objectives of the Consultation

The objective of this consultation was to search for comprehensive, equitable, self-sustained initiatives (with or without partnership with government for primary healthcare) and the endeavour to replicate the primary healthcare models in underserved populations.

This consultation sought to bring out insights from experience and evidence, on ways to financially sustainable comprehensive and equitable primary healthcare initiatives in impoverished rural areas. Learnings from the Consultation inform the implementation and research for testing out a model of primary healthcare at a rural, tribal block in Southern Rajasthan