SAMRIDH initiative: Sustainable Access to Markets and Resources for Innovative Delivery of Healthcare (SAMRIDH) initiative.

Context:

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) announced a new partnership under the SAMRIDH Initiative i.e. Sustainable Access to Markets and Resources for Innovative Delivery of Healthcare initiative.

About SAMRIDH initiative:

• In 2020 the Indian government, academia, and the private sector developed the innovative SAMRIDH blended finance facility to combine public and philanthropic funds with commercial capital to create and rapidly scale market-based health solutions.
  • Blended finance is an approach towards financing where catalytic funding (e.g grants and concessional capital) from public and philanthropic sources is utilized to mobilize additional private sector investment to realize social goals and outcomes.
• It will improve access to affordable and quality healthcare for vulnerable populations in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, and rural and tribal regions.
• This initiative is implemented by a Technical Support Unit managed by IPE Global (a company).

VISION

CATALYSE MARKET SOLUTIONS AND INNOVATIONS TO IMPROVE ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE AND QUALITY HEALTHCARE SERVICES FOR THE VULNERABLE INDIVIDUALS

Objectives:

• Bridge supply-side gaps in healthcare facilities to respond to health emergencies in the immediate, medium, and long term.
• Accelerate scale-up and adoption of innovative and market-based health solutions.
• Mobilize resources to support high impact health solutions and build sustainable healthcare systems.
• Promote local and comprehensive solutions at the community and facility level for vulnerable populations.

Significance of the new collaboration

• The new partnership aims to enhance SAMRIDH’s efforts to reach vulnerable populations by leveraging AIM’s expertise in innovation and entrepreneurship.
• AIM and SAMRIDH will leverage philanthropic capital, and public sector resources to offset barriers for commercial investments in small and medium health enterprises to invest in and scale healthcare solutions.
• The collaboration will focus on innovations across the healthcare landscape with the common goal to mount an effective response to the ongoing third wave of COVID-19 and build health system preparedness for future infectious disease outbreaks and health emergencies.

Indian Health Sector Data: Budget spending and Insurance Levels

• The public expenditure on health sector remains a dismal show of only around 1.4% of the GDP.
• The investment in health research has been low with a modest rate of 1% of the total public health expenditure.
• Insurance coverage remains low as per the latest NSSO reports over 80% of India’s population remains uncovered by any health insurance scheme.
• Under the centre run Rashtriya Swyasthya Bima Abhiyan, only 13% of the rural and 12% of the urban population had access to insurance cover.
• There has been a stark rise in the out-of-pocket expenditure (6.9% in rural areas and 5.5% in urban areas – OOP in proportion to monthly expenditure). This led to an increasing number of households facing catastrophic expenditures due to health costs.

Indian Health Sector Data: IMR, MMR, Hunger, Non-Communicable diseases, and Mental Diseases

• India missed by close margins in achieving the millennium development goals of maternal mortality (India – 167, MDG – 139) and under 5 child mortality rate (India 49, MDG – 42). The rate of decrements in stillbirths and neonatal death cases has been slow.
• Nutrition status has been dismal and is one of the causes of child mortality and morbidity. As per the global hunger index (by IFPRI), India ranks 78th among 118 developing countries (with 15% of our population being undernourished; about 15% under-5 children who are ‘wasted’ while the share of children who are `stunted’ is a staggering 39% and the under-5 mortality rate is 4.8% in India.)
• While communicable diseases contribute 28% of the entire disease burden, non-communicable diseases (60%) show ample rise and injuries at (12%) now constitute the bulk of the country’s disease burden.
• India ironically has to cater two extreme healthcare situations. They are (1) one arising out of exclusions (out of poverty or lack of proper healthcare facilities) (2) while the other as lifestyle diseases like diabetes and cardiac related problems.
• There has been a steady rise in mental illnesses in the country. According to a recent publication, one in every four women and 10% men suffer from depression in India.
• At the same time progress has been marked in the field of communicable diseases as such. Polio has been eradicated, leprosy has been curtailed and HIV – AIDS cases have met the MDG target of being reduced by half in number.

Indian Health Sector Data: Personnel Status

• Health workforce density in India remains low.
• India’s ratio of 7 doctors and 1.5 nurses per 1,000 people is dramatically lower than the WHO average of 2.5 doctors and nurses per 1,000 people.
• The majority of the health workforce is concentrated in urban areas.
• Furthermore, there is an acute shortage of paramedical and administrative professionals too.

How is it different from the SAMRIDH Programme?

• The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) launched the ‘Start-up Accelerators of MeitY for Product Innovation, Development and growth (SAMRIDH)’ programme in August 2021.
• It was launched to create a conducive platform to Indian Software Product start-ups to enhance their products and secure investments for scaling their business.

Source: PIB

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