Thirty Years and Beyond

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Thirty Years and Beyond. There was a time when we used to go to other countries for treatment as advanced medical facilities were not available in India.

Dr Prathap C Reddy throws light on the future of health care and research on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the founding of Apollo Hospitals and the launch of his biography “Healer: Dr Prathap Chandra Reddy and the Transformation of India” by Pranay Gupte

There was a time when we used to go to other countries for treatment as advanced medical facilities were not available in India. Why can’t we do this back home? – This question in Dr Prathap C Reddy’s mind was the seed for the Apollo Hospitals 30 years back. “I lost my patient; a young man couldn’t afford to raise $15000 to go abroad for treatment and died leaving behind 31-year-old wife, a four-year-old son and two-year-old daughter. I looked at them and wondered why shouldn’t we do the treatment in India?” shared Dr Prathap Reddy during the launch of his biography written by veteran international journalist, biographer and historian, Pranay Gupte at Apollo Hospitals, Jubilee Hills.

The book “Healer: Dr Prathap Chandra Reddy and the Transformation of India” that took two years in making was launched on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the founding of Apollo Hospitals. Sharing the highlights of the journey, “For me, it has been a very satisfying journey in last 30 years. It was not easy. There were politicians, who didn’t understand, but a few Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi and President of India Pranab Mukherjee and many IAS officers understood the value of what would come, if we changed the way things had been in health care. Today we don’t need any of our patients to go abroad, while patients from 150 countries are coming to us and let us earn precious foreign exchange. If we can develop skilled healthcare manpower we can be the global healthcare destination.”

He took the opportunity to list out the hurdles in making India the global health care destination. He said he strongly believes that India has the capability to become the health care destination, but for the visa hassles. “I met various ministries to ask them why it is it so difficult to acquiring a Visa to India. It is almost an impossible task. He has to pay three times the normal fee and it takes three days for the Visa to happen and there are several occasions when Visa is rejected. We need to impress upon the government to change this scenario.”

Throwing light on the future, “The focus will be to set up more hospitals and beds. But the biggest challenge is to create awareness in our people towards preventive healthcare. We shall work towards effective utilisation of IT in healthcare to bring down the cost and increase our telemedicine centers from the current 200 to 2000 not only in India but across the world. We shall make doctors accessible through I Phone and to reach their CT, MRI scans through I Phone. Apollo is involved in various research projects like developing vaccine for atherosclerosis, an antibody for cancer cure. We are also working on curing hypertension. The group is also working on a smaller dialysis machine.”

“We are joining hands with the global doctors across the world to develop the vaccines for diseases and heart disease is one among them,” he added, “A heart surgery, which costs over $100,000 in US, could cost $ 2,000 in Apollo.”

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Thirty Years and Beyond

Thirty Years and Beyond. There was a time when we used to go to other countries for treatment as advanced medical facilities were not available in India.

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