Efforts have to be made to make healthcare more affordable, and in a vast country like India, multiple models of doing this have to be tried out, according to Shobana Kamineni, executive director of the Chennai-based Apollo Hospitals Group. She was talking at a session, ‘India at the forefront of global health’, on the third day of the IES held here.
Pointing to the Aarogyasri programme being implemented in some south Indian states, Kamineni said around 30 million people were getting healthcare facilities at as low as $10 a year, including up to one open heart surgery for families below the poverty line. “We were earlier sceptical about this scheme”, she said, ?but its success proves that while the central government should play a pivotal role, many other organisations too get involved at the state level?. One of the ways in which Indian firms can ensure cost-effective heatlhcare is by cutting the expenses involved in the healthcare delivery system, experts said. Fortis Hospitals (India) president Daljit Singh said his firm had reduced costs in such hospitals in tier 2 and 3 cities terms of infrastructure and by using technology.
