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Apollo Hospitals Group Chairman Prathap C Reddy, on Tuesday, said that the government should increase its spending on healthcare sector to implement all of its policy announcements, and to save millions of lives from the risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
"I think the government should increase its healthcare spending from 1 per cent to 3 per cent, so that the public expenditure can be around 5-7 per cent to take the overall healthcare spending to 10 per cent of GDP," Prathap C Reddy said at the launch of ‘Apollo ProHealth’, a proactive health management programme.
"Six years ago, the World Bank warned that 80 per cent of deaths in the next decade will be due to NCDs and it would create a cost burden of $30 trillion," Reddy said, adding that India’s cost burden will $4.8 trillion or 50 per cent of the country's GDP.
He also lauded the government’s recent announcement of setting up health and wellness centres for the poor people across the country. “The government has increased healthcare spending to mere 1.25 per cent, which is not sufficient. I wish the government increases it to 3 per cent,” he added.
Terming NCDs as tsunamis, Reddy said, Apollo’s ProHealth programme is an innovative giant step that will help to prevent the preventable deaths arising out of NCDs. He also said that the government should treat the private hospitals as ‘co-players’ as they provide healthcare services to two-thirds of the country’s population.
Apollo ProHealth, which is powered by artificial intelligence-enabled personalised Health Risk Assessment (pHRA), will combine technology and human elements by providing a personal ‘health mentor’ to guide each individual to stay focused on health track.
The three-year healthcare programme is priced at ₹6,000 for the first year and ₹5,000 and ₹4,000 for the second and third year.
Apollo ProHealth was launched in Chennai and Hyderabad, and will be rolled out in more cities subsequently. The programme will be available across the Apollo ecosystem by the end of the year.
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