N.B. Nair
New Delhi (ISJ): The Novel Coronavirus spread across India exposed the country’s gap in healthcare infrastructure. Over 43 million people were infected, while 5.17 lakhs succumbed to the virus infection.
Of the three waves that India witnessed, the second one was highly catastrophic, with maximum number of deaths between March to May 2021. People in urban and rural India alike scrambled to get medical attention for their dear and near ones. Many gasped to death, in the absence of oxygen.
Several healthcare experts advised the government to create and expand rural healthcare, which can bridge the gap in infrastructure to provide primary treatment. This would take the load off tertiary hospitals, which could focus on specialized treatments.
These rural healthcare centres do not require high-tech equipment to provide treatment for many common diseases. With advancement in healthcare technology, such centres could link up with referral hospitals across the country and abroad to get advanced medical advice. This has an added advantage to bring down the burden of medical expenses.
According to a report in The Lancet, 24 lakh Indians die of treatable diseases every year. India accounts for 20 percent of the global disease burden and more Indians die of poor-quality care than due to lack of access to healthcare. With a considerable fall in poverty levels, India has also seen a marked increase of non-communicable diseases (NCD), of which a sizeable number are lifestyle diseases. According to an estimate, NCD accounts for almost half of the death toll.
“In rural India, health services are being compromised due to several issues including non-availability of sufficient experienced physicians and poor health literacy among people,” said Dr Biswarup Ghosh, a non-resident neuroscientist and biochemist based at Pennsylvania, USA, who co-founded a healthcare start-up in West Bengal’s East Burdwan district.
Besides out patient consultation, the start-up named Neucrad Health Hub India, provides pathology services at Machalandapur in East Burdwan.
“Neucrad Health Hub aims to provide high quality, approachable, and pocket-friendly digital health care services for all residents of India. Our mission is to provide affordable, value based, precise, extensive digital health management which will entitle users to make focused and informed health related decisions,” said Anup Kumar Ghosh, CEO at Neucrad Health.
During second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in India, Neucrad introduced free telemedicine services with the help of several empathetic physicians. Hundreds of patients and families got benefitted through these free services. Neucrad teams helped people during the crisis by connecting them with the resources of oxygen, ambulances, medicines, blood banks, and beds in hospitals. “We are focused to bring an empathetic, quality health care services across India,” added Anup Kumar Ghosh.
Dr Biswarup Ghosh explained, their startup seeks to provide high quality, approachable and pocket-friendly digital healthcare services across the country.
“Our mission is to provide affordable, value based, precise, extensive digital health management which will entitle users to make focused and informed health related decisions,” said Dr. Ghosh. He said, the services would be available very shortly.
Image Courtesy: Dr Biswarup Ghosh
