Govt aims to achieve WHO prescribed doctor-patient ratio of 1:1000 by 2024: Niti Aayog

NEW DELHI: The government aims to achieve the doctor-patient ratio of 1:1000 as prescribed by World Health Organization (WHO) by 2024, Dr Vinod K Paul, Member, NITI Aayog said on Thursday. He was speaking at the CII Asia Health 2021.

Paul highlighted two focus points on "infrastructure and human resources". "Firstly, in infrastructure, we currently have 12 lakh beds, half is in the private and government sector. "The national health policy expects us to increase the ratio of 1:1000 to 2:1000. We are truly short of beds and we should eventually pitch for 3:1000 given that we will large senior citizens coming up who will need hospitalization," said Paul.

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"Therefore, to reach 2:1000 beds we need to add 10 lakh beds straightway. Public health systems are moving in this direction in a significant way through the introduction of 157 new medical colleges, 16 AIIMS, and 37,000 beds under Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission," said Paul.

Paul urged the private sector is to create a sufficient number of beds. "We should pitch at 5 Lakh beds to come from the private sector side. For augmentation of human resources, there have been pathbreaking reforms under the National Medical Commission," he said.

"We now have 54,000 PG seats- our deficit in Post-graduation is to the tune of 5 times typically. Our deficit of MBBS to achieve the WHO ratio of 1:1000, we will reach this by 2024. From about 8,000 National Board Seats can the private sector make it 3 times," he said.

CII also launched the report titled "Telemedicine Demystified – Necessity During the Pandemic, Boon for the Future." This joint study by CII -IQVIA maps the Telemedicine landscape in India, and how it has added value to the Indian healthcare ecosystem since the advent of the pandemic.

The report highlighted the key disparities in the current ecosystem and states how telemedicine is the next big change for healthcare in India, which will augment the existing healthcare systems and address issues of patient well-being and the payers-provider, as well as physician-patient axes, must be managed effectively to ensure that the potential of telemedicine is truly realized over the next decade.

Dr R S Sharma, Chief Executive Officer, National Health Authority said that with the tectonic shift seen in the uptake of digital in the covid 19 pandemic, there couldn't have been a more opportune time for Ayushman Bharat Digital mission to come into being. While teleconsultations have been talked about for the past decade, this tectonic shift caused the emergence of telemedicine for consultations and OPDs in an unparallel manner. There is evidence from the success of the e-Sanjeevani app which has facilitated over 5 million teleconsultations to date which now sees 40,000 teleconsultations per day.

Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) will help create a superhighway to seamlessly connect all stakeholders of the healthcare ecosystem digitally. However, to redefine access to digital health and reinvent service delivery we need strong collaboration between public and private health programs. In ABDM, open design, inclusivity, and security are at their core. ABDM will be scalable and provide a cohesive ecosystem for private sector innovation. Further with all health records linked under health id; the patient will be able to access their health history anytime and anywhere without worry of losing their health records," said Sharma.

CII Asia Health 2021 is being held from 28-29 October. This year is themed on 'Transforming Healthcare for a better Tomorrow' – with the objective to deliberate on the 5 critical A's of awareness, accessibility, adaption, accountability, and affordability determine and impact the Healthcare Sector -

"There is a need to look at a holistic approach, seats for doctors in colleges over the last two years have been doubled. Affordable health treatment should be given with affordable facilities and medicine accessible by all the people," said Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister of Health & Family Welfare and Chemical & Fertilizers addressing the inaugural session of CII Asia Health 2021.

"Awareness among people is increasing will also lead to increase in the investment opportunities in the healthcare sector and the private sector should take a lead by increased investments. Medical value travel is an opportunity, other than Ayushman Bharat, there are many other schemes launched by the government focusing on holistic health and preventive care," said the health minister.

Mandaviya said that digitalization is helping build new opportunities in the healthcare sector.

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