Nathealth Announces the New Leadership Team for the year 2019-20

 

India’s healthcare apex body NATHEALTH announced its new Leadership Team for the year today. Dr. Sudarshan Ballal, Chairman, Manipal Hospitals, Manipal Health Enterprises Pvt Ltd has been elected as the President of the federation.  He succeeds Mr. Daljit Singh, President, Fortis Healthcare Limited.

Dr. Sudarshan Ballal thanked the outgoing President of NATHEALTH, Mr. Daljit Singh and warmly welcomed Mr. Rajit Mehta as Senior Vice President-NATHEALTH, along with the other members of the NATHEALTH Leadership Team – Ms. Preetha Reddy as Vice President-NATHEALTH, Dr. Badhri Iyengar as Secretary-NATHEALTH and Dr. Harsh Mahajan as Treasurer-NATHEALTH.  Mr. Siddhartha Bhattacharya, Secretary General, NATHEALTH will lead the federation with this team, towards its goal of creating a robust platform for long term growth and sustainability of India’s healthcare sector.

Speaking on emerging priorities President, NATHEALTH, Dr. Sudarshan Ballal said, “this has been a truly tumultuous year for healthcare and the events of this year will certainly shape the future of healthcare in India. The greatest and biggest news and development of 2018 is the rolling out of NHPM or Ayushman Bharat by the central government providing Rs.5 lakh coverage to about 500 million poorer sections of the society. Stringent governmental regulations, increased public and media attention on the cost of healthcare will substantially affect the delivery of healthcare in our country. The effect of demonetization, GST and capping of prices would further impact healthcare in a big way. The greatest challenge for the healthcare sector is to” deliver 1st world healthcare at 3rd world costs.” 

Given these challenges in the healthcare scenario NATHEALTH should focus on a much broader participation by various stake holders and be the “Voice and Face of Healthcare” in the country.

We should work along all the other forums for healthcare in the country at least in some critical areas and be the interface between the government and private sector in advising models for affordable, quality but viable healthcare for the masses. It would be crucial for NATHEALTH be an advisor and knowledge partner to the government on their policies regarding  preventive care, primary care, management of NCD, digital health, skilling and expanding the pool of specialists both in the public and private sectors.

We should also be the torch bearers for safe guarding the interests of the healthcare sector in these difficult times.

Mr. Siddhartha Bhattacharya, Secretary General-NATHEALTH said, “We welcome our new leadership team which will continue to work towards the development of the healthcare sector to benefit the people, address relevant healthcare issues and champion the progress and development of this sector.”