Mr. Joy Chakraborty

COO, PD Hinduja Hospital & MRC Mahim, Mumbai

The focus on improving mental health by introducing the National Tele Mental Health Programme is a welcome move in the current times .This should encourage more people to seek medical help for mental health issues and improve the overall well- being of the population. Introducing virtual labs and skilling e-labs to be set up to promote critical thinking skills and a simulated learning environment is a good step. This should help to bridge the skill gap in the healthcare sector, especially in the allied health sciences / paramedical area. Undoubtedly, the internet and the digital landscape have transformed our world. The rolling out of the open platform for the National Digital Health ecosystem is much required and welcome step. It will help boost telemedicine, improve accessibility of healthcare in remote areas. Besides it will also help enhance convenience for patients, since their medical records can be accessed with ease from anywhere. However, security of medical data needs to be taken care of. Further a strong internet with 5G connections will further help to boost the telemedicine sector and make health care accessible to people who live in isolated areas and provide feasible access to medical specialists to connect with patients. The pandemic brought out serious issues and limitations about country’s current healthcare infrastructure , and we would appreciate if there were definate steps announced for strengthening our infrastructure and medical education to have more doctors and nurses. Government expenditure on healthcare needs to increase to about 3% of GDP and there was no mention about this in the budget. More incentives to encourage health insurance could have been introduced. In addition, the healthcare sector needs funds around preventive healthcare, testing, a strong R&D, expanding new technologies, and upgrading the services to reduce the overall disease burden.