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The sector would employ over one million people by this time, she added.
Delivering the foundation day lecture at Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIM-B), a premier B-School, she said, “a lot has happened in the growth of healthcare industry in the country, but a lot is needed to be done”.
Reddy said, India is now well over a billion people with vital healthcare challenges that need to be addressed. This entails a significant increase in access, awareness and affordability of healthcare services and addressing the challenges through breakthrough innovation across healthcare provisioning, financing and creation of enabling environment with participation from multiple constituencies in the private and public sectors.
India has the lowest rates of institutional delivery due to acute shortage of hospital beds, said the top boss of Apollo Hospitals, which has over 8,500 beds across 51 hospitals in the country.
India will need another 1.7 million beds to reach the world average of 2.6 beds per 1,000 population and should double the number of doctors, triple the number numbers of nurses and quadruple the number of paramedics to meet the World Health Organisation’s mandate of population to medical personnel recommendations.
In a recent study by the World Economic Forum, it was concluded that between 2013 and 2030, the cumulative cost of healthcare and loss in the economic productivity due to illness, largely attributable to cardio vascular diseases, cancers, pulmonary diseases and diabetes would be around 30 trillion dollar.
India shares a significant portion of that economic burden, Reddy added.
Rajiv Kaul, Chairman, Board of Governors, XIMB and Director Father Paul Fernandes also spoke on the occasion.
