India was world's No. 1 in handling Covid: Apollo Hospitals founder

In a Q&A, Prathap Chandra Reddy talks about the need to focus on medical tourism and medical education to meet the demand of 18 million professionals in the sector by 2030

With India’s healthcare sector in a pandemic-induced transformation mode, Prathap Chandra Reddy, Founder and Chairman, Apollo Hospitals Group, believes the country should focus more on technology in its road ahead. In an interview with Shine Jacob, he talks about the need to focus on medical tourism and medical education to meet the demand of 18 million professionals in the sector by 2030.

Edited excerpts:

1. How do you evaluate the Indian healthcare sector’s performance during the pandemic?

The pandemic certainly brought in some amount of attention for individuals on their health. This is clearly proven. It increased awareness. The government played a key role and the vaccination drive that we did was commendable. The way the government hospitals were also geared up to the challenge is remarkable.

In India, during the pandemic, both public and private health care worked very well. The way Covid was handled, India was the world's No.1 in handling Covid. At Apollo, we opened 4,000 hospital beds and 5,000 hotel beds so that all sick people wouldn't have to go to hospitals. At the same time, we came up with Apollo 24x7 through which doctors gave tele-advice throughout the day. It became so popular that many people panic stricken at home dialled the number and found relief.

Apollo Pro-health is a personalised health check up to catch co-morbidities. We hope people use this pro-health and we have large plans to develop it across the country. The doctor orders the precise test that you require. Apollo is known for clinical excellence, care, compassion and cost benefit. This gave people the best possible care at a fraction of the cost.

2. Where do you want to see Apollo by 2030?

Today there are today about 70 institutions. In the next three years we are planning to add another 10-15 and reach around 100 hospitals by 2030.

We would also like to go abroad. Now, we are only managing facilities abroad. We are in initial talks with possible partners to start our own facilities in UAE, Bahrain and Indonesia. We may also look at Africa. We will also look at the UK to open a clinic at least to start with in the centre that we have. The prospect of raising money isn't a big deal today. They trust Apollo. We will look at it when the right opportunities comes. We are talking to people to co-invest.

3. How do you assess the medical tourism scenario in India?

There is greater awareness in both the public and private domains in increasing quality healthcare. I had urged the Prime Minister last year to declare India as a global healthcare destination through the ‘Heal in India’ programme. The government is working on it. India can give today the same level of care globally, with cost benefit. People from various countries are coming to us, but the West is not coming in large numbers. They think Indian healthcare is cheap, not cost effective.

In the West, their waiting period is 2-3 years, they are short of doctors and nurses. I suggested to the Prime Minister that we must work towards providing a global workforce. The shortage of doctors, nurses and technologists will be 15-18 million by the end of this decade.

I am happy that the government is providing it by opening more training institutes. By 2030, private organisations like Apollo should open more medical institutions. We have three now – in Hyderabad, in Chitoor and in the UK. We are doing everything possible. We must see how we can fill that gap for the world. By filling that gap, you will medical education do what IT did for the country in terms of earning foreign exchange and geerating employment.

4. There is too much focus on technology at the moment. Where is it heading?

When there is a greater threat from NCDs, awareness of newer technologies like artificial intelligence, machine intelligence, robotics and genomics are also there. This is where Apollo has concentrated in the past 4-5 years. We have been exploring how we build our systems.

Patient care has improved significantly through AI and ML. All these technologies are evolving. We have already done 10,000 robotic surgeries. We have kept a target of reaching 100,000 in the next five years. When Apollo crosses 100,000, the country will be doing a million such surgeries. We have adopted newer technologies for greater precision and less complication and better cure for patients. In addition, hospital stay is less.  

5. You had recently acquired a 60 per cent stake in Kerala First Health Services (KFHSL), which runs Ayurveda hospital chain AyurVAID. What is your take on alternate medicine?

Even today, for autoimmune diseases, the allopathic system has no cure, but Ayurveda does. For arthritis and psoriasis, we (allopaths) have no cure. We need to suppress it. Ayurveda needs more research, which the government is doing. We should do it on a much larger scale. India should offer to the world their medicines.

6. You also see non-communicable diseases (NCDs) as a major challenge. How do we overcome this?

We never thought of Covid, but NCDs were projected way back by global organisations like WHO, saying by the end of this decade, by 2030, eighty per cent of deaths will be from NCDs. This includes heart attacks, strokes, cancer, diabetes and infections. I will add two more to this problem – mental illness and obesity. Percentage-wise we have fewer obese, but-number wise they are are high. We need to control it. All these things are either controllable or curable. This is the advantage of our Pro-health check up, which will help detect the disease early. I think NCDs needs a great deal of attention from individuals. Then it is very easy for the doctor to manage these problems.