It has been three years since Covid began spreading worldwide. Despite the challenges and pressures they faced, doctors and medical professionals in India saved lives with their selfless work.
On July 2, the day after India celebrated National Doctors’ Day, THE WEEK honoured a group of unsung heroes in the medical fraternity—the ‘doctor-preneurs’, or doctors turned entrepreneurs who ran their own hospitals as the pandemic raged. The event, named Healers and Heroes, felicitated 25 such doctor-preneurs in Chennai.
Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian inaugurated the event and honoured the doctors. He reminisced about his association with Malayala Manorama and his visit to the Manorama office in Kochi when he was the mayor of Chennai. Malayala Manorama and THE WEEK, he said, were known for their exemplary work in journalism.
Subramanian also spoke about Tamil Nadu’s innovative health care initiatives. He said schemes such as the Chief Minister’s Comprehensive Health Insurance, the 108 ambulance service, eye-care for schoolchildren, doorstep delivery of medicines, and free treatment for road accident victims in the first 48 hours were the first of its kind in India. “The government alone cannot make these schemes succeed,” he said. “If private hospitals, too, come together to work with government hospitals, these schemes can be implemented well.”
He said the scheme for accident victims—named Innuyir Kappom Thittam: Nammai Kakkum 48—has saved 1.6 lakh lives in 688 hospitals since its launch in December 2021. “We have spent Rs150 crore for saving people’s lives,” he said.
Big salute: Doctors who were felicitated at THE WEEK event in Chennai on July 2, with Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian (in the middle, wearing white shirt), former AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria (to his left), Guidance Bureau managing director and CEO V. Vishnu, IAS (to the minister’s right), and THE WEEK’s Chief Associate Editor and Director Riyad Mathew (extreme right) | R.G. Sasthaa
The state government has spent Rs7,730 crore on the chief minister’s insurance scheme, he said. As many as 1,513 diseases have been identified for treatment under the scheme, for which the government spends Rs1,546 crore every year. “Tamil Nadu is the only state in India where the chief minister’s insurance scheme is implemented professionally. There are 968 private hospitals and 811 government hospitals that treat people under this scheme,” said Subramanian.
THE WEEK’s Chief Associate Editor and Director Riyad Mathew felicitated Dr Randeep Guleria, former director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi. Delivering the keynote address, Guleria highlighted how data science and technological innovations can help the health care industry improve the quality of treatment and reduce costs.
Dr Randeep Guleria | R.G. Sasthaa
“We have to use technology to reach out to remote areas where health care workers or doctors are unavailable,” he said. “A lot of hospitals have started doing outreach programs using technology and telemedicine. We can make it better so that every nook and cranny of the country is covered in terms of providing health care.”
He spoke about how Bharat Biotech swiftly developed Covaxin during the pandemic, and how a group of engineering students visited AIIMS and developed—and later patented—devices that provided better health care. “I would really encourage all hospitals to see how they can become entrepreneurial,” he said. According to him, health care is both a science and an art that required doctors to empathise with patients.
V. Vishnu, IAS, managing director and CEO of Guidance Bureau, Tamil Nadu’s nodal agency for investment promotion, delivered a special address encouraging doctors and hospitals to focus on research and development and come up with cutting-edge technology. “We have the right infrastructure. What we need is a push towards really niche, high-end R&D, especially in drug delivery. There are R&D opportunities in areas like medical devices, biotechnology, bio services, pharma and nutraceuticals,” said Vishnu.
According to him, the state has been a leader in health care and medical tourism, and it is now looking to develop the life sciences sector. “Tamil Nadu is the only state to have a life sciences policy,” he said. “We recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Omron in Japan.”