COVID makes us realize why we need easy and efficient access to healthcare

The year 2020 has been an eye-opener in so many ways. Starting from businesses realizing the importance of going digital to citizens of the country realizing how much deep they have fallen into consumerism, the world has endured a lot, and so has India!

According to a recent survey by the Asian Development Bank, the outbreak can cost up to $29.9 billion to the Indian Economy.

Where is India on the Human Development Index?

Before we talk about this, we first need to understand what the Human Development Index is! It is a statistic of the combination and relation between the life expectancy, education, and per capita income of the individuals.

All these measures are the key components of a society’s development.

It does not come as a shock that we rank 129 on this index amongst the 189 countries of the world, and this does indicate the fact that we are a third-world country. There are a lot of other things that should be mentioned here, which has led to this ranking:

Healthcare Industry: Although we boast about having a great healthcare industry, still, in reality, there is a huge scope of improvement in this aspect.

This pandemic taught us that we indeed have a lack of resources, in the field, and that the balance between private and public infrastructure is significantly absent. A study showed that it is expected to grow up to $372 billion by 2022

The impoverished and rural habitats still do not have easy access to affordable health care, which makes us think if the healthcare industry is actually spread out evenly across the country.

Apart from that, studies reveal that contagious deaths in India is much higher than the global average.

But that’s not it. Global Health security Index, ranked India at 57 out of 195 countries for pandemic preparedness. While China Italy stood at 51 and 31 respectively. In conclusion, Indian is even more vulnerable to epidemics compared to China and Italy.

Why is Covid-19 a blessing in disguise?

Well, if you are thinking about the fact that how a pandemic, that has shut nations and its economies, can be called a blessing, you are also forgetting the fact that it has made us realize the most important necessities for a healthy life.

With the news of pandemic echoing in every household and the statistics of people dying every day, the citizens are widely realizing the need for efficient healthcare. Apart from that, the pandemic has also seen a rise in buying and subscription of medical and life insurances.

What are the other indicators?

Increase of spendingṣ by the government on Medical Infrastructure: The pandemic has also seen a rapid increase in government’s proactiveness in acquiring facilities and equipment and setting up of new hospitals and medical centers across the country for increasing the health infrastructure.        

Investment of resources and technology in the healthcare field: This has also been a trend in the last few months and of course, in the last few years.

We have seen companies like PharmEasy and MedPlusMart which already have an online pharmaceutical retail wing coming up with more solutions for digital healthcare starting from digital consultation of doctors to door-to-door delivery of medicines and other healthcare products.

Apart from all these, there has also been a growing trend of companies coming in and investing in the future of the healthcare industry, and coming up with doctor-patient virtual interfaces, which does prove the fact that in the coming years, we will see a rise of technology and how well connected, the healthcare parameters can be for the coming generation.