Karnataka’s health department and the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) in Bengaluru co-hosted a roundtable on Wednesday to explore partnerships and funding opportunities for strengthening public health systems. The health department and C-CAMP, an initiative of the biotechnology department under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Earth Sciences, have formed a strategic alliance to boost public healthcare delivery through indigenous innovations. “Our aim is to make Karnataka a model state for healthcare that can be replicated by other states. I believe we can achieve this only through like-minded collaborations and partnerships. The public-private partnership will enable us to mobilise funds to upgrade our healthcare facilities and also help us explore innovative technologies and modern practices, which can make our public healthcare more affordable and accessible. We are looking forward to ideas and are working towards a results-oriented approach and having a measurable impact,” said Health Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao, who chaired the meeting. Rao underlined the significance of four factors—affordability, accessibility, quality and scale—in any augmentation effort for public health systems. He said that healthcare is one of the most important measures of any government’s success. To reduce procedural challenges in the improvement of healthcare delivery, the state government has brought in partners like C-CAMP to specifically address challenges in maternal and child health, non-communicable diseases, tuberculosis and eye health, the minister added. C-CAMP Director-CEO Dr Taslimarif Saiyed said, “Our objective for today’s roundtable is to work on a roadmap for the next three-five years for the deployment of innovative, indigenous health solutions emerging from Karnataka by facilitating partnerships between Government of Karnataka, C-CAMP and CSR and philanthropic organisations.” Saiyed said that such a PPP model would be pathbreaking for new technology adoption even at the national level. “This is aimed to address some critical public health challenges, largely in semi-urban and rural populations. The pilot and scale-up programmes enabled by these projects will also hugely benefit deep science based entrepreneurial ventures based in Karnataka as the biotech capital of India,” he added.
