Letters

Typically, bed charges constitute ~10-12 per cent of average medical expenditure for hospitalisation in for-profit hospitals. In the absence of input tax credit, we expect the hospitals to pass on the levy to patients, making it largely credit-neutral for hospitals. However, given that in most cases, hospitals tend to offer packages for various treatments, computing bed cost separately is likely to be a challenge and clarity on the same is awaited.

Mythri Macherla, Assistant Vice President and Sector Head, ICRA

The healthcare industry, driven by value-based patient care, is at a turning point that will put a greater emphasis on connectivity and accessibility. As the world is transforming digitally, we need to ensure we don’t miss out on lifesaving, critical information.

Jan Makela, President and CEO, Imaging, GE Healthcare As a result of the commendable efforts of the Government of India, according to the latest report of SRS-2019, the child mortality rate in the country has come down considerably since 2014. This rate has come down from 45 per 1000 live births in 2014 to 35 per 1000 live births in 2019. But even today, diseases related to diarrhoea continue to be a major cause of death in children under the age of five.

Dr Bharati Pravin Pawar, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare India is standing at the forefront of a digital revolution. The world has seen the success story of our country with the largest digital identity programme, record adoption of digital payments and more recently, the national vaccination programme via CoWIN platform. The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission aims to replicate this success in healthcare delivery by building an equitable, accessible and inclusive ecosystem that rides on collaborative efforts of the government and private sector.

Dr RS Sharma, CEO, NHA During our fight against COVID-19 pandemic, we saw the importance of digital services for healthcare delivery. The impact that teleconsultation, online appointment bookings, readily available health information and access to specialists had on people was unprecedented. We’re positive that the ABDM platform will help us scale the efforts and create a conducive environment with enthusiastic public and private sector participation. We look forward to taking up implementation of ABDM in mission mode and giving it speed, scalability and support that we can provide at the state-level to achieve the ultimate aim of healthcare for all

Dr K Sudhakar, Minister of Health & Family Welfare, and Medical Education, Government of Karnataka

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