India-Canada to partner in healthcare

Since Canada has the expertise in providing quality medicare from coast to coast, the summit will discuss how Canada can help in providing quality healthcare across India, he said.

The summit will also discuss how Indian expertise in IT can help Canada bring down the cost of its universal healthcare since it lacks trained doctor and nurse manpower.

"By using Indian IT expertise, Canadian doctors and nurses in big cities like Toronto can guide healthcare staff in far-off areas in delivering quality healthcare to people," said Dr Lakshmanan.

Canada can also benefit from India in providing old-age care to its fast aging population, he said.

"With its huge pool of nurses, India also has an opportunity to provide old-age care for Canadians as the population is aging fast and provincial governments in Canada are looking at public-private partnership options in old-age care because of the rising costs."

Because Indians are genetically much more prone to diabetes and heart diseases, the summit will discuss how Canada's pioneering work in these fields can be useful for medicare providers in India.

"The substantial number of people of Indian origin have triggered some important research in Canada on diabetes and heart disease. Pioneering work being done in these fields can be very useful for healthcare providers in India," said Romesh Chotai, who is the biggest importer of Indian generic drugs into Canada.

He will co-chair the Delhi health summit, which will also look at how Canada can benefits from India's traditional and alternative healthcare practices such as ayurveda and homoeopathy.

Many Canadian companies -- from hospital infrastructure, medical devices, telemedicine and medical equipment sectors -- are coming to the health summit to explore partnership possibilities with Indian companies.

The Canada-India Health Summit is an initiative of the Canada-India Foundation in collaboration with Ontario's Ministry of International Trade.