'Infuse funds for capacity creation in health sector'

New Delhi, Oct 23 (IANS) While we have to infuse lots of funds into infrastructure, we also have to infuse more efforts and activities for capacity creation - both from public as well as the private sector, said Dr K Madan Gopal, Senior Consultant, NITI Aayog, on Friday here. Talking about capacity building, he expressed concern on the present health infrastructure in the country.

Dr Gopal was speaking on the third conclusive day at 15th edition of Annual Healthcare Phygital & Virtual Conference - FICCI HEAL 2021: 'Transforming Healthcare beyond COVID', held from October 20 to 22. The healthcare conference was held on how to bring healthcare at everybody's doorstep and the future of med-tech industry in India.

While talking about the changing landscapes of Diagnostics, Dr Om Manchanda, MD, Dr Lal PathLabs shared that Indian market is larger as compared to many other countries and there is a huge potential for organized players and a shift from unorganized to organised is required. There are many enablers for this shift- initially it was quality but today service is playing a big role too".

Speaking on the event, Dr Shravan Subramanyam, FICCI Medical Devices Committee and President & CEO, GE Healthcare South Asia said, "The med-tech industry today could not be in a better place to address the needs of the market, patients and communities. The mandate from our government to be self-reliant is very critical, and med-tech sector which faced many challenges during the pandemic, has benefited quite a lot through production linked incentives and various other schemes".

Madan Krishnan, Vice President and Managing Director, India Medtronic shared his view on infrastructure, "Today we need a single window clearance system so that there is an ease of expansion of health infrastructure".

Dr Alok Roy, Chair, FICCI Health Services Committee, closed the conference saying that the three-day conference was organized with a view to converge all healthcare stakeholders and provide a forum for sharing of learnings and experiences as well as deliberate on the opportunities for transforming Indian healthcare system beyond COVID.

FICCI-KPMG Knowledge Paper on aCOVID Induced Healthcare Transformation', was released during the inaugural session of the conference. The conference was supported by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and NITI Aayog.