By Avinash Prabhakar

New Delhi, Aug 15 (IANS): On the eve of 75th Independence, Dr. Uma Kumar, Head of Rheumatology at AIIMS, underlined policy evaluation as an important health agenda for India ahead. She said that that along with policy implementation for health sectors, there should be a mechanism for policy evaluation also to examine the results across the nation.

Once the policy is formulated and got implemented throughout the nation, we must have a mechanism that could analyse the results and benefits at the grass root levels. It should work in a comprehensive manner simultaneously with implementation, she said.

Talking about spending on healthcare, Dr. Kumar emphasized on the need to increase the healthcare share in the GDP. She said that it would augment the healthcare facilities at primary level and district levels where standards of care and treatment for all diseases would be available at affordable costs on doorsteps. It is time to strengthen public-private partnerships in the health sector, added Dr. Kumar.

She also opined for a National Data Collection Mechanism who could analyse the data region-wise throughout the country before the formulation of health policy.

"Development of primary health sector is a major concern for all of us which can lessen the burden from the secondary and tertiary sector of health," she said.

Being asked on Covid pandemic, she said that the public needs to unite with the government's efforts to combat this pandemic. Third Covid wave depends on people's behaviour, if we follow the covid appropriate behaviour; we can prevent the pandemic, added Dr. Kumar.