World health day is observed on April 7 every year. Awareness, boosting digital healthcare and focusing on hiring skilled paramedics staff is the key to a better healthcare system in India.
A strong, efficient, and well-organized healthcare system is critical to the economic well-being of every country. Even in resource-rich countries like the United States, however, a raging public health epidemic that snuffs out millions of lives in a matter of months stretches the healthcare delivery system to the breaking point. One can readily picture the stress and pressure that a global pandemic would place on developing countries like India, which already struggle to satisfy the day-to-day healthcare demands of their enormous, underserved populations in the best of circumstances.
In a pandemic that is rapidly spreading, vigorous symptom screening, testing, isolation, and quarantining is the greatest way to flatten the curve and prevent additional individuals from becoming ill. The official numbers of confirmed cases and deaths are a crucial psychological factor in deciding the pandemic’s urgency and scope, as well as the government’s response. At the onset of the epidemic, India’s testing capabilities for Covid-19 was severely lacking, resulting in serious under-identification and under-reporting of Covid cases.
Considering the problems India has encountered in tackling the pandemic over the last two years, and how infrastructure development and planning could help us manage Covid-19 or any other public health catastrophe far more effectively in the future, Dr Dipu TS, Associate Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, Amrita Hospital, Kochi, explained the situation and said, “during the first wave of the pandemic, beds, intensive care units, ventilators, oxygen, and life-saving drugs were in short supply across the country. The government attempted to address the problem by acquiring 60,000 ventilators, with around 17,000 being delivered to states across the country. Patients who need a ventilator or other life-saving devices from Covid were unable to receive them due to a shortage of healthcare personnel, which included critical care experts, nurses, and paramedics such as respiratory therapists. This demonstrates the country’s inability to deal with a pandemic of this magnitude, not only in terms of medical infrastructure, but also in terms of managing trained human resource and in maintaining a seamless supply chain.”
This demonstrates the increased demand for rapid conversion of scientific research findings into market-ready solutions. It also emphasises the critical function of government agencies such as DBT-BIRAC in strengthening the healthcare industry by assessing the commercialization of in-house medical research products.
Applauding government’s quick action plans Dr Dipu TS added further, “the setting up of Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) labs was a good initiative from the Government to sequence the gene and understand the newer variants of concern on a real-time basis to alert the system for appropriate measures. The vaccinating India campaign and its execution was tremendous, considering the billions of populations it has covered.”
Suggestions to make India pandemic ready:
Moving to a world where people can live freely without the scare of any virus killing them or their loved ones, Dr Dipu TS, lists down his suggestions to make India pandemic ready:
1. Awareness and correct information flow to the people, via having a national database for people/media or the experts could refer too
2. Healthcare infrastructure strengthening by investing in both public and private sector
3. India needs more skilled doctors, nurses, and paramedic’s staff who are cross trained to deploy in the situations of need
4. Better management and plan to maintain the supply chain of medicines, materials and equipment’s and a contingency plan
5. Strengthening of Telemedicine services and other digital health services
6. Leadership training and strategic planning for managing future disasters
7. More clinics and healthcare institutions have to embrace the model of public- private partnership
8. Better home care services can lessen the burden on healthcare system
9. COVID vaccination drive should continue until we have 100% penetrance and coverage for which we need to address the vaccine hesitancy in the community and take collective and corrective measures
10. Continue the surveillance activities to recognise newer variants and regional outbreaks so as to activate the preventive public health measures in a timely manner.
A pandemic is not only a public health crisis, but also an economic crisis for majority of the population, as jobs and other opportunities to earn a living are severely affected. To support the citizens during times like this, various financial models have to be explored that expedite insurance reimbursements so as to cover healthcare expenses of people along with the subsidies for industries in general and individuals in particular.
Also Read: Vaccine is the best way to get the world out of pandemic mode
