Following the session on Wednesday, healthcare players greeted the Union Budget as positive and forward-looking.
According to Dr K. Hari Prasad, President, Apollo Group, the Union Budget demonstrates a growing emphasis on healthcare.
The Finance Minister proposed 157 new nursing colleges and novel skill development courses for medical equipment and device manufacturing and innovation as part of healthcare skill development.
Another critical component of the Union Budget, he said, was promoting research and innovation in healthcare by opening ICMR labs for collaborative research with medical colleges and the private sector.
Artificial intelligence in healthcare is getting a lot of attention, which will be a huge help in improving healthcare and creating opportunities for research and innovation across the healthcare spectrum, he said.
He believes that 5G labs for developing healthcare applications will improve healthcare connectivity and access to higher quality care for people living in distant geographies. Replacing old ambulances with new ones will improve pre-hospital emergency care, allowing for more lives to be saved during the “golden hour.”
“The government healthcare expenditure has doubled over the last eight years and is going up further. With wellness and primary care being the areas most of focus it will have a positive impact on basic healthcare indices like maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate,” he said.
ALSO READ: Doctors advise elderly people and children to be vigilant this winter
Post-Covid: sudden heart attack rise among Indians, doctors worried
Dr. Bollineni Bhaskar Rao, MD, KIMSAHospitals, said it was encouraging to see that the Union Budget 2023-24 continued to prioritise research in healthcare-related fields. He praised Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for paving way to dedicated multidisciplinary courses to ensure availability of skilled manpower for futuristic medical technologies, high-end manufacturing and research.
“I am sure many leading industry players will partner in conducting interdisciplinary research, develop cutting-edge applications and scalable solutions in areas like healthcare and sustainability,” he said.
Krishna Prasad Vunnam, Founder and MD, Ankura Hospital for women and Children welcomed the government’s intent to invest in setting up centres of excellence to promote research and development in pharma and termed it an excellent move to help India move up the value chain in the life sciences sector, the “157 new nursing colleges, sickle cell anemia reduction program, pharma research, and PPP for medical research is much needed. Facilities in select ICMR labs to be made available for research is a good move,” he said.
(This story has been sourced from a third-party syndicated feed, agencies. Raavi Media accepts no responsibility or liability for the text’s dependability, trustworthiness, reliability, and data. Raavi Media management/ythisnews.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content at its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever.)