Healthcare Industry Trends  

Growth

The Indian healthcare industry is expected to witness further growth on the backdrop of the growing incidence of diseases. The number of people hospitalised for diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, TB etc, is expected to rise from the present 17 million to 22 million by 2015, according to CII and various government and agency projections.

Cardio-vascular diseases and cancer are expected to grow with the fastest pace due to factors like changing lifestyle, stress, alcohol and tobacco consumption, to name a few. The government expects 10 lakh new cancer cases to be diagnosed by 2015 as compared with around 8 lakh in 2004.

It also expects cardio vascular diseases to rise to 64.1 million by 2015 from the current figures of 38 million. India with 16.75% of the world population currently accounts for 20% of the world’s diseases.

Indians account for one-third of the world’s patients suffering from diarrhoea, TB, respiratory infections, parasitic infestations and prenatal conditions, and a quarter of patients with maternal conditions, a fifth of nutritional deficiencies, diabetes, cardio-vascular diseases (CVDs) and the second largest number of HIV\AIDS cases, which alone stand at 5.19 million.

Healthy Opportunity

• India, with 16.75% of the world population, accounts for 20% of its diseases
• The number of those hospitalised for cancer, diabetes, TB, cardiac ailments may rise to 22 m by 2015
• Cancer and cardiac ailments may grow fastest due to changing lifestyles, stress, alcohol and tobacco consumption
• India spends only 5.2% of its GDP on healthcare services

Diabetes is also expected to emerge as a major disease. It accounted for 0.7 % of India’s disease burden in 1998. According to estimates by the ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the number of diabetic patients is expected to rise to 46 million in 2015 from 31 million in 2005.

Medical tourism, a new buzzword

The Indian healthcare industry can also expect to record decent growth on account of medical value added travel (MVAT) or medical tourism. Patients from countries like the US, the UK, Middle East are increasingly turning to India. Cost advantage of up to one-tenth of the total treatment costs in the UK, the US and the EU, and quality Indian talent and services are some of the factors attracting these tourists to India.

Investment and expenditure

McKinsey expects this industry to become a $2-billion industry from the present $333 million one by 2012 with a million tourists visiting india for MVAT.

At present, India spends Rs 1,03,000 crore or 5.2 % of the country’s GDP on healthcare services. Of this, only 0.8 % is public expenditure while the rest is private.

Industry estimates expect this figure to rise to 8% of the GDP by 2012. The average state healthcare allocations have also come down from an average 7.02 % of the GDP in 1985-86 to 4.71 % of the annual budget in 2004-05.