Now-a-days,
making claims of working on development of affordable healthcare devices has
become more of a fashion statement and is seen as an easy route to gain
visibility in the society. Though it attracts heavy funding from government, it
is anybody’s guess how many such devices really translate into commercially
viable market ready products and actually deliver in the field.
While
not questioning the novel intent of people jumping into the bandwagon of
affordable device developers, one won’t be really off the mark in stating that they
do not necessarily address the needs of the masses where the word
“affordability” actually matters. Take for instance, getting an ultrasound /
MRI scan etc done is not cheap unless it is heavily subsidized and as a result,
patients seeking to get these scans done in government run setups get wait
periods starting from few days to months together.
Though
healthcare services are offered by private setups at rates, often beyond the
paying capacity of a common man, one cannot overlook the fact that most of the high
end medical equipments are imported. Not only are they expensive to procure,
their spare parts and related disposable accessories, if any, are sold at
premium. And hence, one is at the mercy of the whims of the foreign
manufacturer, irrespective of the service provider.
The
only way to break the monopoly of the foreign players is by raising the
barriers to entry into the Indian market through indigenous development of
similar devices with no frills attached and making them mandatory to be picked
up by the government run healthcare setups. While it is easier said than done,
development of high end medical devices need involvement of good dedicated people
both from science and engineering background to work in parallel with the
medical fraternity. Though a sophisticated functional medical device cannot be
churned out within a short time, with the right intent, a good team should be
able to develop the same within a given time frame and a reasonable budget. It
is not too unrealistic a target for Indian scientific community to achieve, if
it is seen in perspective of the achievements of scientists in Indian Space Research
Organization who have proven that there is no dearth of talent in India to deal
with complex scientific problems. Another successful story highlighting the
Indian talent is that of development of indigenous supercomputer Param when
India was denied access to the Cray supercomputers initially by the US
government.
Keeping
in tune with our present Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s “Make in India”
campaign, the government should provide the right eco-system to train students
and motivate them to take up research in fields where there is a requirement of
certain gestation period in order to get good results. More integrated five
year dual degree programs like the one offered by IIT-BHU should be introduced in
various institutes. While the primary degree (BSc./BTech/BE) should be in a
core field of science or engineering, the secondary degree (MSc./MTech/ME) in
Biomedical engineering should constitute some core courses offered in medicine
as well. It has been observed that students with a primary degree in Biomedical
Engineering do not have strong foundation in any core (engineering / science) field
in particular and it is the mishmash of subjects taught in such courses which
make the student a jack of all trades and master of none.
While
the tuition fees of such dual degree programs should be kept high to ensure the
best of facilities, it should be ensured that the students after completion of
such programs get immediately absorbed in government institutions for a fixed
duration, something similar on the lines of short service commission offered by
the forces. This would ensure that students are not left clueless about their
future after the completion of the course or end up joining private firms at
lucrative salaries and have jobs nothing to do with Biomedical Engineering. Raising the amount of grant in research fellowship is a welcome step in this direction.
While
continuing with the present approach of inviting new project proposals, the
government on its own should set targets where the specifications of the
devices are well defined after consultation with the medical fraternity and
subsequently the work delegated to institutes depending on their expertise.
Facilitating
smooth execution in a professional manner of high impact medical device
development projects with proper audit at every step and providing the
requisite support at any point of time to such projects, without allowing the
ego of the people of various institutes to come into play will ensure that
tax-payers’ money is well spent to make healthcare “affordable” in true sense.
