The CSR arm of State Bank of India – SBI Foundation, launches the India Health Alliance (IHA). It is a collaborative healthcare program to support the Government of India in its efforts to combat current and future healthcare challenges in the county.
The main objective of IHA would be on combating the COVID-19 pandemic in India by providing optimum nutrition and comprehensive primary healthcare to the vulnerable population, promoting innovations, promoting innovative finance, and cutting-edge technologies that can overall strengthen the health sector of the country.
SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar said that they are overjoyed to announce the launch of the India Health Alliance. He also added that they believe it would help to ensure access to quality healthcare in the country, especially in the current pandemic situation. In the current situation, it is important to work on improving the health infrastructure of the country so that the health benefits reach the bottom of the pyramid and effectively improve their health and well being.
To achieve the two objectives of promoting innovative finance and strengthening the network of public and private health service providers, SBI Foundation is raising a $100million blended finance facility in collaboration with the SBI, USAID India, and National Health Authority. The initiative will use a collaborated finance approach (debt + grants) to ensure effective and rapid financing assistance for technology-based innovations; management of community-level interventions and human capital and infrastructure expansion.
With ongoing efforts of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, SBI Foundation will also be launching two of its initiatives in the areas of Screening & Testing and Tele-Care. Individuals will be screened in connection with the local government and case of Tele-care, good quality healthcare will be provided by using hyper-local helpline, Tele-counselling, emotional well-being support, and connection to social security schemes. These initiatives will be scaled in partnership with other corporations in the future.
This new flagship program on healthcare will bolster and build on the current public healthcare system in India. This also aims to aid the government as it collectively fights to aid those who have been infected and contain the spread of the coronavirus further.
