The much-needed government spending to scale up an existing healthcare ecosystem could also give the much-needed stimulus to economic activity, create employment and empower the health care ecosystem which will truly help India become Atmanirbhar, stresses Paul Abraham, President, Hinduja Foundation
The global pandemic has overwhelmed healthcare systems of most developed countries, including the ones with state-of-the-art infrastructure as was the case with Europe and the USA. India with a population of over 1.3 billion has been working towards pre-empting such a situation from occurring. India’s tally of patients infected with the novel Coronavirus has crossed four lakhs and the death toll at around 14900. Globally over 9.5 million people have been infected.
India has so far adopted a three-pronged approach: lockdown of the entire nation, creating containment zones and ramping up the healthcare infrastructure and supply chain. In recent weeks, some states have ramped up testing.
Now, as the government embarks on `Mission Begin Again’ central and state governments are adding new beds, increasing the capacity of intensive care units, requisitioning portions of private hospitals, ordering lifesaving ventilators, recruiting medical practitioners on contract, weighing in on extending services of retiring doctors and nurses and earmarking select government hospitals for COVID-19 patients.
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The pandemic has proved that a successful response system is predicated on a few things. An agile healthcare system and a healthy population is key to the economic and social wellbeing of a country. The absence of that can be psychologically debilitating and can sap the confidence of the citizen and the nation. We also need a solid institutionalised planning capability and an implementation framework that is based on centre-state dialogue and cooperation, transparency and coopting of the private sector.
The most recent government statistics show, India spent only 1.28 per cent of its GDP on health in 2017-18, compared to nearly 18 per cent in the United States, and far lower than neighbouring countries, including Indonesia (1.4 per cent) and Sri Lanka (1.68 per cent).
Reinvesting and scaling up the healthcare system with a futuristic vision is thus become a priority of the Indian government. The much-needed government spending to scale up an existing healthcare ecosystem could also give the much-needed stimulus to economic activity, create employment and empower the health care ecosystem which will truly help India become Atmanirbhar.
India’s response to the healthcare crisis
India as a developing world has faced many health challenges—communicable and non- communicable. India did succeed in defeating polio and managing the outbreak of Nipah virus, which claimed 17 lives in the southern Indian state of Kerala in 2018.
In a recent report of India Council of Medical Research (ICMR), titled India: Health of the Nation’s States: The India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative(2017), it is observed that the disease burden due to communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases, as measured using Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), dropped from 61 per cent to 33 per cent between 1990 and 2016.
In the same period, disease burden from non-communicable diseases increased from 30 per cent to 55 per cent. The epidemiological transition, however; varies widely among Indian states: 48 to 75 per cent for non-communicable diseases, 14 to 43 per cent for infectious and associated diseases, and 9 to 14 per cent for injuries.
The Polio eradication model– grass-root strategy
The learnings from the aggressive Polio Eradication Immunisation drive clearly give India an edge in checking the spread of COVID 19. A strong partner and healthcare worker network, door to door/local monitoring, awareness campaigns with celebrities and aggressive immunisation have ensured India eradicate polio completely.
To tackle a pandemic of this scale and be future-ready for any such virus outbreaks, the government would have to adopt a grassroots strategy. Aggressive testing and door to door monitoring through a strong partner/volunteer network would help curb immediate cluster outbreaks.
The long-term solution would require strengthening the district hospitals, medical college hospitals and primary health care infrastructure. This is crucial because the current capacity of the government medical system is severely curtailed by poor quality overall and yet it is to them that falls the task of providing hospitalisation capacity and medical care.
India’s strides towards becoming Atmanirbhar in healthcare
India under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi has set the ball rolling to build a robust health care ecosystem in the country. The world’s largest healthcare scheme – Ayushman Bharat, is the first step in that direction. The flagship programme covers hospital costs up to Rs. 500,000 for the poorest 40 per cent of Indians. COVID19 can be an opportunity for the government to strengthen the social healthcare scheme in the country. The scheme aims to cover more than 500 million beneficiaries and provide coverage of Rs. 500,000 per family, per year.
To increase the access of health services across the country the government is also aiming to promote the use of technology in healthcare. The slogan on telemedicine and Make in India has the potential to transform the healthcare sector.
An example of the initial optimism is that with the strict preventive measures adopted by various states to restrict the movement of people to avoid the spread of the virus –most doctor consultancies apart from emergencies are becoming virtual. However, the demand is way higher as compared to supply. A country which had no manufacturing capability of PPEs has since the outbreak adapted existing units to produce over one crore PPEs.
Source: Express Healthcare
