PHDCCI, the Industry chamber and Public Health Foundation of India(PHFI) signed a five-year pact for launching a joint programme to organize skill development workshops for healthcare professionals.
The MoU signed by Dr Mahesh Gupta, President, PHD Chamber and Professor K Srinath Reddy, President, PHFI, will undertake a country-wide initiatives to conduct training workshops for industry, government (central/state) and MNCs on important public health issues, with a special focus on Non Communicable Diseases.
The chamber emphasized “this sector is suffering with overworked professionals because of shortage of staff” and also pointed out the major constraints that are being faced by healthcare professionals. The skill development workshops can be used across India to scale up and get this workforce to be competent in the healthcare space, it said.
Stressing on the need to upgrade skills in the Healthcare sector, Prof K Srinath Reddy, President, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) emphasised, “The healthcare sector is expected to drive the growth of the economy as well as play a significant role in employment. In spite of notable progress and many positive developments, deficiencies in human resources both in terms of skills and numbers continue to pose a challenge for healthcare sector, affecting ‘Universal Health Coverage for All’. This MoU is a landmark initiative and will provide training on best practices in healthcare to a large spectrum of professionals in order to improve their employability and work towards a healthier India.”
Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) in its 2012 report estimated a shortage of 6.4 million allied health professionals in the country. The report highlighted the gap in both; sheer number of professionals of various specialties as well as the quality of skills acquired by the graduating students from several hundreds of institutions across the country.
“The MoU will aim to work and conduct training workshops for healthcare professionals on chronic diseases across India and to develop and facilitate work-site wellness programmes with Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) heads, particularly for the prevention of non communicable diseases,” it said.
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