India's Leading Healthcare & Pharma Companies 2023

6 | India’s Leading Healthcare & Pharma Companies 2023 [ OVERVIEW OF INDIA HEALTHCARE SECTOR ] INDIA HEALTHCARE - MAJOR CHALLENGES Inadequate infrastructure and unequal access to healthcare: Healthcare services in India are unevenly distributed, with urban areas having better access to healthcare facilities than rural areas . The rural sector face challenges of low quality of care, poor accountability, availability of skilled medical personnel and access to facilities. Shortage of efficient and trained manpower: One of the most pressingproblems remainsasevere shortage of trained manpower in medical stream, especially doctors, nurses, paramedics and primary healthcare workers. Physician per thousand remains abysmally low at 0.7 as per statistics by World Health Organization as compared to global average of 2.5 per thousand people. Improving this situation will remain a long- term process. Expensive healthcare treatment: M e d i c a l p r o c e d u r e s f o r cancer treatment, transplants bea r immed i a t e a t t en t i on . Overburdened government hospitals often delay in offering timely treatment which diverts patients to seekmedical care in the costlier private hospitals Out-of-pocket health spending still high despite of government expenditure: Out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure is the money paid directly by households, at the point of receiving health care. This occurs when services are neither provided free of cost through a government health facility, nor is the individual covered under any public or private insurance or social protection scheme Almost half of out-of-pocket (OOP) spending in India ispaidbypatients themselves directly at the point of treatment as per WHO. The high OOP expenditure underscores the urgent need for increased access to affordable healthcare. INDIAN GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE INITIATIVES & MITIGATION MECHANISM Indian government has launched various schemes for affordable healthcare. Ayushman Bharat - Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) was launched in Sep’18 as a step towards Universal Health Coverage. The scheme aims to cover poorest 40% of the population covering over 500 mn Indian population with insurance cover of INR 500 thsd per family to protect from catastrophic health expenditure incurred in secondary and tertiary care. Healthcare expenditure by sources of finance (% of total) Note: Government schemes include compulsory contributory health care financing schemes; others include Voluntary health care payment schemes and philanthropic financing Source: WHO, Dun & Bradstreet Dun & Bradstreet