The expat workforce in the Gulf region, especially the labourers who are mostly from India, do not have proper healthcare facilities with the governments there focusing more on local people, said Dr Azad Moopen, leading non-resident Keralite entrepreneur in the health sector.
Speaking about affordability, accessibility and quality healthcare in the Middle East as part of a plenary session at the ongoing Global Healthcare Summit in Kochi on Wednesday, he said the Gulf countries faced a huge challenge in the case of accessibility to health care.
“But things have improved in the past five years through a better insurance mechanism. Governments are taking care of the local people, leaving the healthcare responsibility of expatriates to the private sector through employers’, he said.
Pointing that Kerala had a vital connection to healthcare system in the Middle East, Moopen, the Chairman of DM Healthcare, said Keralites alone accounted for 25 per cent of the population in UAE against 12 per cent of the local people.
“There are 1000 Indian doctors in UAE alone and about 500 doctors in the GCC countries. But now, one big challenge is the lack of trained medical personnel. India used to be the mainstay supplier for long, but now the conditions are competitive as doctors do not go to Gulf for work. In the case of nurses and lab technicians, the pipeline is still better.’ Moopen, who has a network of 150 healthcare establishments across the Middle East under Aster and Medcare brands, feels India can learn much from the quality aspect there.
Talking about the global perspective, Dr M S Valiathan suggested that India should adopt lessons from even Bangladesh and Thailand to evolve strategies, especially steps like bulk purchase of generic drugs by the Governments.
“Quality healthcare is a reality to the affluent sections, but still a myth to larger sections of the society. Things have changed for the better after 2000 in India through Government interventions,’ he pointed out.
Viren Prasad Shetty, Vice-president of Bangalore-based Narayana Hrudalaya, called for increased use of technology by doctors to improve the clinical quality in the modern era.
American Medical Association president Dr Jeremy Lazarus said the US was witnessing reforms in the health sector recently. That is the most comprehensive one happening in the last 50 years time. “From fragmented individual approach, there is a collaborative team-based system now in place.”
On Kerala perspective, Dr Ramdas Pisharody, Principal of Trivandrum Medical College, said the state was facing new challenges from emerging fevers and nosocomial infections and called for a relook even in the case of curriculum for medical education in the backdrop of the changing challenges.
