JAIPUR: Former senior aide to former US President Barack Obama , who served as the executive director of the Democratic National Committee , Patrick Gaspard, inspected a community health centre in Bassi on Tuesday to study how the state government is providing medicines to patients free of cost.While exploring the free medicines scheme, the US team learnt about the design of the scheme, along with the supply-chain involvement and process of online monitoring of availability of medicine, said Dr Samit Sharma, special secretary (health), health department.Gaspard, who is currently holding the post of president of Open Society Foundations (OSF), a body working for making medicine accessible to people, having its headquarters in the US, praised free medicine scheme in the state. “This warehouse is extraordinary and transformative. Thank you for the vision of the future of health delivery,” he mentioned in the visitor’s diary, after inspecting the drug warehouse at Sethi Colony area of the city.The team from the US told the state government officials that their organisational support efforts to increase access to essential medicines for people in low-resource countries, especially for poor and marginalised populations. Officials said that they had visited Rajasthan as they were keen to see and understand the workings of the free medicine scheme that Rajasthan has pioneered. “When millions of Indians and people worldwide are struggling without access to affordable medicines, the state’s innovative efforts have enhanced access to medicines and health care services for over 70 million people and transformed the public health system for better,” said OSF, which is a global network of foundations committed to local knowledge and national expertise, and provides direct assistance to governments.The team talked about how it transformed a mammoth public system to a functional, effective and efficient one, at a time when confidence in public system to deliver services is being questioned. The team visited a community health centre in Bassi and a drug warehouse to witness the programme in action.

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