Covid in India: An overview of the role of Covid in transforming healthcare in India

Introduction

Pre and post-Covid healthcare will bear no similarities to each other. The transformation in healthcare space in the last 2 years has surpassed the last 20 years. “ - Dr. Narrottam Puri, FICCI Health Services and MVT; Board Member & Former Chairman- NABH

The onset of a pandemic like Covid challenged even the best healthcare infrastructures of the world, and India was as unprepared if not more than the rest of the world. The speed and magnitude of the spread made it imperative for the ecosystem to work in tandem and come up with solutions FAST!

As would be required, necessary adjustments had to be made in order for the nation to combat the unprecedented disruption.

In the due course of fighting the pandemic, we were able to analyze the necessary whitespaces which we can now fix in order to achieve a bulletproof industry for the future. Not only this, but we were also able to make significant advancements that would otherwise have taken decades to achieve.

The healthcare sector in the last year has been one of the largest sectors in terms of both revenue and employment, and it continues to grow at a steady pace./p>

3 major factors contributed to the advancements during Covid:

• Incorporation of Technology
• The Government’s Response
• The Public and Private Institutions Working in Tandem

• Incorporation of Technology

While the whole nation was in lockdown and reacting to the sudden change, everyone right from students to the Government, and private institutions tried to best use technology to create solutions with the least physical human involvement. A few key digital initiatives include:

• The E- Sanjeevani telemedicine platform: While OPDs remained shut as per Government advisory, the platform successfully provided over 1 cr consultations through specialty and super-specialty OPDs.
• Aarogya Setu App: The app was used to facilitate contact tracing, self-assessment, and syndromic mapping amongst citizens. It was made mandatory to enter various public and private facilities during the unlock phase.
• CoWIN: To create a smooth function of the overall vaccination drive and manage the end-to-end supply chain
• Private players also created platforms and private groups to help remove roadblocks in finding vaccines, plasma, oxygen, and any other facility.

• The Government’s Response

Despite certain initial roadblocks, the Government’s proactive response helped maintain significantly lower deaths per million and cases per million than other parts of the world.

Be it the augmentation of rapid healthcare infrastructure, testing capacity, vaccination, increasing oxygen supply, implementation of digital initiatives, and financial assistance to aid pandemic management, there were steps taken to ensure minimum damage while keeping the state of the economy intact.

The Government is also looking into how the ecosystem can now be developed to make it more robust. A few ways they plan on doing that are:

• Making efforts to increase the number of beds per thousand to bridge the accessibility gap in smaller cities
• Introducing schemes like Ayushman Bharat and National Digital Health Mission to achieve Universal Health Cover under “Health for All”
• Increasing focus on Telemedicine

Here is a look at the Union Budget of 2021-22:

“The government has proposed outlay of ₹2,23,846 crore for health and well-being, an increase of 137 percent from the previous year, with ₹35,000 crore earmarked for COVID-19 vaccine in the coming fiscal. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has been allocated ₹71,269 crore in FY2021-22, an increase of 10 percent over the previous year (₹65,012 crore). This includes the budgetary allocations to National Health Mission (₹36,577 crore), Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (₹6,400 crore), Centrally Sponsored Schemes (₹22,044 crore), and Establishment Expenditure (₹6,245 crore). Department of Health Research has been allocated ₹2,663 crore, an increase of 27 percent over the previous year (₹2,100 crore). Ministry of AYUSH has been allocated ₹2,970 crore, an increase of 40 percent over the previous year (₹2,122 crore). Allocation for Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) under National Health Mission stands at ₹7,000 crore in FY2021-22, an increase of 16 percent over the allocation of ₹6,020 crore last year. A new allocation of ₹30 crore has been made for National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) this year under the Centrally Sponsored Schemes. Apart from the ₹35,000 crore announced for COVID-19 vaccination, the Made in India Pneumococcal vaccine, currently available in 5 states, will be rolled out pan-India, potentially averting 50,000 child deaths annually.”

• The Public and Private Institutions Working in Tandem

While there has always been a disparity in terms of access to healthcare geographically and due to the presence of Private institutions being centered in tier 1 and tier 2 cities, both private and government sectors worked in tandem in response to the pandemic.

In fact, as of July 2020, the private healthcare sector is India’s fourth-largest employer, with 72 percent of the total hospitals under it, and having 60 percent of the total hospital beds in the country.In doing so, they also had to bear a 40 percent loss in operational profits and keep the OPDs shut for the year as per the Government’s advisory.

The private players have provided strong support to each Government policy which could expedite the nation’s recovery from the pandemic.

Realizing the need and paucity of the infrastructure in Tier II and Tier III cities, hospital chains are expanding to these cities by building local facilities or tying up with local doctors.

More changes witnessed by the country include:

• A rise in healthcare insurance awareness
• Medical Tourism: with access to higher quality medical facilities at relatively lower prices, India can be attractive to foreign visitors for healthcare.
• Incorporation of Tech in both private and public practices

Conclusion

It was a series of changes and efforts that made India not only withstand the pandemic but also support other countries in doing so. We believe that this is just the beginning and healthcare infrastructure will continue to grow given the scope of growth that Covid has already made us realize.