Congress president Rahul Gandhi addresses at Royal Society of Medicine, London (PTI)

LONDON: Congress president Rahul Gandhi has revealed ambitious plans to introduce an NHS-style state-funded universal healthcare system in India under a Congress government.

Speaking to 200 doctors at the Royal Society of Medicine in London on Saturday, the Congress president said,“ the goal of universal healthcare in India” had finally become achievable."

The NHS offers free quality medical treatment at the point of delivery and is accessible to all in the UK, regardless of wealth.

“Congress is trying to conceptualise how a universal healthcare system similar to the NHS can be built in India. The goal of universal healthcare is something we aspire to and is something we will achieve. I don’t think that goal was achievable 10 to 15 years ago because we didn’t have the money,” he told doctors from Guy’s and St Thomas’, King’s and Imperial.

Dr K Sudhakar, who organised the healthcare symposium, confirmed to TOI on Monday: “We would like to do something like the NHS in India. We would like to understand what the right practices are and it needs to suit India’s affordability as we may not be able to spend what the NHS spends. It’s about affordability and scalability. We need to ensure the quality of healthcare and then there is no reason why anyone in India should need to use private institutions. Modicare is an eye-catching slogan that does not solve the problems,” he said.

Congress plans to adopt the “best healthcare practises across the globe” and implement these in India “when Congress comes to power,” Sudhakar said.

In the UK most patient contact happens in primary care (visiting the GP), unlike India where the majority of healthcare delivery happens within tertiary care (seeing consultants).

Explaining why this is the case, Gandhi said: “The politics in India has not decentralised powers.”

“If you look at the politics in England — I saw in Richmond the local government system and how the local decisions are taken by that council,” he told the doctors. “The Indian system concentrates power in the hands of the chief minister and prime minister. If you want an effective primary healthcare system, you have to have the local political structures governing that system so it is a question of devolution of power to the villages and to the urban areas. That’s a fight because there are forces that don’t want to devolve that power. You are not going to change the primary healthcare system unless you change who is implementing and running it and it has to be done at the local level.”

Gandhi also told the healthcare professionals that India’s record on HIV and on generic medicines was “exceptional”.

He agreed with a psychiatrist’s comment that more psychiatrists were needed in India, but he said the Indian system already has a parallel traditional system of “support structures that play that role that don’t necessarily look like psychiatrists, example yoga, meditation, when we go to temples, these are all ways of relieving pressure,” he said.

“India has its own traditional system of coping, like joint families. There is another system and it’s quite a powerful. A lot of our philosophy and inward-looking nature is designed to solve this problem and it works.”

Sudhakar is now setting up a committee with healthcare professionals from across the world to come up with suggestions on best healthcare practices for India. This will then be presented in a white paper.

