DARE - Because Entrepreneurs Do

Walk into any hospital in the country and you are overwhelmed by the sea of humanity that has gathered there for care and succor. The story is the same from primary health centers to super specialty hospitals and from simple nursing homes to ultra luxury setups for the ultra rich.

The numbers though are dismal, to say the least. Only about 80 percent of our children are vaccinated for BCG. Hepatitis B vaccinations are not even at half that level and polio vaccinations were below 70 percent in 2008. It is estimated that just 2 percent of the population has medical insurance and even at those dismal levels, growth in medical insurance coverage is at a CAGR of just 37 percent.

For effective healthcare, there has to be a tiered approach, with facilities at different levels and scales, with the focus shifting more to prevention and early detection rather than the current emphasis on just cure. Even as we build more and more super specialty hospitals, we also have to build primary health centers and district level hospitals with good facilities and good doctors.

Then there are more endemic problems. There have to be enough doctors and paramedical staff. We also need to question the very basic premises on which our healthcare industry operates. The cost of educating a doctor has to come down as must the cost of primary medical care. More doctors have to be able to get admission to specializations even as graduate doctors are not required to do slave labor. Health insurance has to be affordable to at least 60 percent and more of the population, even as we must accept that insurance companies have to be profitable, for them to continue to provide the service. India has many rich traditional systems of medicine that have to be made more mainstream.

Given the current state of affairs, this is a huge task, or if you look at the other side of the coin, a huge opportunity. We can blame the government for the state of affairs and continue to do nothing or seize the opportunity at hand and be the change that we want to see.

Krishna Kumar

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Medical Tourism
written by Roshan Shah, January 18, 2010

And with Booming Medical Tourism the prices for surgical procedures are shooting up as demand for quality doctors pick up with international patients.

We have a huge problem and huge opportunity in healthcare sector.

Roshan Shah
CEO
http://www.kosansh.com

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