Despite India’s growing reputation as a medical tourism destination, the country is experiencing a shortfall in qualified professionals. Industry experts have estimated that nearly 50 per cent of specialist positions in the health sector are vacant.
“Public healthcare is on the decline in the last two decades. Even as India evolves as an attractive destination for complete joint replacements, spine surgery and cardiac surgery for patients from US, Europe and Africa, there is a high shortage of staff,” said Dr Lloyd Nazareth, chief operating officer, Wockhardt hospitals.
The health industry size is about Rs 1,60,000 crore which is 5.1 per cent of the GDP. Nazareth said that India needs atleast 0.6 million doctors and 1.1 million nurses in the next 10 years if the country wants to make its mark in the health sector.
Apart from lack of infrastructure, the country also sees a low spend in health care by the government. “At present the government spends only one per cent of its GDP on health. Despite various government and private schemes, penetration of health insurance is less than 5 per cent in the country,” added Nazareth.
Industry experts say that there have been no major changes in the health sector, especially in the rural areas in the last 20 years. Infant mortality is high at 400 per one lakh births as compared to the government’s target of lowering it down to 100.
“Other Asian countries like Sri Lanka have infant mortality rates 12 times lower than India. This is because 20 per cent of those having an illness in India do not seek treatment,” said Nazareth, who was speaking at Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)’s 16th quality summit on the theme, ‘India at 75: The quality dimension’, at Bangalore.
Wockhardt, which has been interested in telemedicine, has established two centres in South India. With ISRO supplying bandwidth and connectivity free of charge for telemedicine, the hospital is looking at reaching out to rural areas.
Working on super-speciality areas, nearly 14 doctors from its Bangalore hospital offer consultation and other services to patients in rural areas.
