Budget Expectations: Need to look at Healthcare as an opportunity not a burden on our economy
By Dr. Divij Mane,
Director Noble Hospitals and Research Centre
Pune, 24th January 2025: The outlook towards healthcare as a burden on economy should be changed. Healthcare along with education are two of the most crucial sectors for our Nation’s progress. The healthcare expenditure is currently less and should be increased.
Developing countries tend to allocate more resources to sectors that enhance the GDP growth. Unfortunately, the Healthcare sector has been traditionally stigmatised as an economic resource drain for being capital intensive. We must retrain a balance to this outlook bias.
In fact, healthcare is one of the most consistent sectors of stable job creation and reliable employment for both the highest and the lowest skilled workforce of our nation. Higher allocation for healthcare, strengthening primary and secondary healthcare infrastructure especially in semi-urban and rural areas will be of paramount importance.
Our nation is a major contributor to developed nations for we provide our best quality of healthcare workers in large numbers, yet, we must strive harder to retain this talent by replicating and enhancing the world-class infrastructure that we have in a few regional pockets. With this we can help transform and sculpt this healthcare sector into a major contributor towards the nations GDP. Our focus should be reiterated also on attracting the huge healthcare demand from outside via medical tourism. Medical tourism generates revenue for the tourism, healthcare, pharmaceutical sectors and boost our ‘Make in India’ medical devices sector as well. The government can highly promote this via various initiatives such as streamlining payment gateways for foreign nationals at internationally accredited healthcare providers, reducing tariffs on visa processing for foreign patients, etc. Official Government tie-ups and MoUs can be authorised by involving the accredited healthcare and insurance providers supported with a dedicated national portal that aligns the foreign embassies for process and financial regulations. The government could also encourage for an attractive ease in the relative GST components for enhancing the consideration of medical tourism for both, the foreign patients and the service providers.
Hospitals in India have already adapting to newer technologies like Robotics and AI. On one hand hospitals have to invest huge amounts on newer equipment and consistently evolving technologies, train experts and staff members and on the other hand make it more affordable for the common people. Lower import tariffs on diagnostic and other medical equipment will help.
Our country has numerous hospitals that have achieved the top most accreditation in the world from the Joint Commission International. Such hospitals are required to adhere to the principles, standards and benchmarks that are practiced by the leading hospitals in the developed countries and this promotes and reinforces the trust of the patients that seek more equitable and approachable healthcare services far away from the comforts of their own hometowns.
