How the changing dynamics of healthcare industry are making rural India healthy?
The healthcare sector is one of the major and strongest pillars of our country. Ever since the pandemic outbreak, the segment has been functioning tirelessly to ensure that the required medical assistance reaches the citizens on time. It has been an ever-evolving market, and the healthcare providers are putting their best foot forward to ensure that the high-end services are available and accessible to all. Even though a lot of good work has happened on the MedTech side, we must look beyond physical healthcare offerings, and vanilla telemedicine for addressing universal healthcare needs.
The healthcare landscape in rural India
According to recent health data, in 2021, the rural population of India was 903 million and it is projected to hit the 905 million marks by the end of 2022. This indicates that the country’s considerable population dwells in rural areas. But what is indeed undeniable is that due to inadequate facilities, the mortality rates are at an all-time high.
As per the WHO, all individuals and communities should receive the health services that they need without experiencing financial constraints. But the reality is that people in rural areas still suffer due to the lack of quality healthcare services. The inadequate access coupled with the growing chronic diseases and higher pricing further adds to the woes.
According to experts, it has been observed that if high quality healthcare at right prices is offered, patients are willing to pay and consume the services. However, this mismatch between the capital cost of building the hospital, lack of quality services and not being able to generate returns is indeed a roadblock. Taking approvals and permits for building a hospital in rural areas is another added challenge.
Overall, availability, accessibility and affordability are the major factors that hinder the growth of the rural healthcare market. However, this can be addressed by providing support to innovative and disruptive models that leverage tech and physical assisted healthcare models in remote locations.
The government’s support in upscaling the healthcare market for rural areas
The government’s push to promote tech deployment, telemedicine, and telehealth, along with the Make in India campaign, is driving the growth of the sector and is ensuring that the rural areas have access to high-end healthcare services. Schemes such as Ayushman Bharat Health, Infrastructure Mission and Jan Arogya Yojana focus on providing state-of-the-art healthcare facilities. As per Invest India’s study, 100% FDI has been allowed by the government under the automatic route to invest in developing hospitals. Adding to it, 100% FDI is also permissible under automatic routes in medical device manufacturing. Doctors are being trained, MBBS, as well as post-graduate seats, are being doubled and investments in hospitals are witnessing a surge to meet the increasing demand of healthcare workers in the country.
Healthcare service providers and start-ups: The blessing in disguise for the rural healthcare segment
Given the high opportunity and high demand generated from the sector, there has been a significant rise in the number of start-ups emerging to address some of the basic healthcare issues in the country. However, they are facing a fair of challenges since the healthcare segment is highly fragmented and disconnected.
Healthcare as a segment calls out for gaps that need to be solved using innovative tech and disruptive business models and the size of the market that is expected to reach INR485.4 billion by 2024, making it a massive real opportunity to scale. With growing investments, the healthcare service providers, the start-ups, as well as the sector, overall are receiving the requisite support to reach the unexplored areas. As per Invest India’s report, there has been a 45.06% increase in total investments in health-tech startups. Furthermore, according to a report by London & Partners and Dealroom.co published last year, Indian health tech start-ups have raised a record $1.9 billion alone in 2021 from VCs, putting India just behind the US, China, and the UK. With over 3000 health tech start-ups in India currently and the growing interest of the investors in the Indian market, the sector will also create more employment opportunities in the upcoming years. Thus, it can be rightly said that as the sector is growing, it is increasingly garnering investor interest as well.
The bottom line
According to IBEF, the government is focusing on providing basic healthcare facilities in the form of primary healthcare centers in rural areas. As per the WHO, the ideal doctor to patient ratio should be 1:1000 and we are far from getting even close to the ratio in the public healthcare sector. However, with new-age health tech ventures who are grabbing the opportunity by coming up with feasible, low cost and scalable solutions, delivery of healthcare services to the rural population is not a dream anymore. Thus, it would be appropriate to say that due to technology, healthcare is gradually becoming affordable and accessible to the rural population, and we are gradually making efforts to sustain our progress in having achieved the WHO vision!
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