The covid-19 pandemic has prompted countries to focus on innovation and collaboration as well as fixing gaps in primary healthcare systems to ensure universal health coverage.
As C20 India, an official engagement group of G20, gathered in the capital for a three-day summit on integrated holistic health beginning Friday, global healthcare experts and institutions have decided to prioritise reorienting health systems for an inclusive approach and address future challenges that are linked to a healthy environment to reduce both communicable and non-communicable diseases.
Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressed on the need for universal health coverage and fixing up primary healthcare systems across countries. He was speaking virtually at the C20 summit on Integrated Holistic Health (IHH) being held in Faridabad in Haryana from April 7 to 9.
“Covid-19 has shown why universal health coverage is important and why we must pursue it with more collaboration, determination and innovation. That’s why WHO’s top priority is to reorient health systems towards primary healthcare. Further, integrating evidence-based traditional medicine into national health systems can contribute towards achieving health for all, including in mental health and nutrition,” Tedros said.
The C20 India summit is deliberating upon identifying, articulating, discussing and addressing key health challenges in the domain of mental health, nutrition, women and children health, elderly care, holistic health approaches, and one health (an approach recognising that the health of people is closely connected to the health of animals and environment) as well as the reduction of non-communicable diseases.
The summit hosts delegates from over 700 civil society organisations from 88 countries, including health professionals, educators and leaders from across the public health landscape whose insights will be incorporated to frame the policy on holistic health (traditional and alternative forms of medicine, including yoga and meditation).
Speaking at the summit, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar emphasised on the well-being of humans saying people need to create balance between the body, mind and environment for a better lifestyle and to avoid falling sick. “One of the factors that causes people to fall sick is the bad quality of grains due to the chemicals used in agricultural pesticides. To stay healthy, we should be careful about what we eat, and also incorporate Ayurveda in our daily lives,” the chief minister said.
The C20 working committee will send its recommendations to its Chair Mata Amritanandamayi Devi by May 10 who will further send it to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by end of July for framing the final policy.
