New Delhi, Jan 29 (UNI) A major focus must be given to the home healthcare industry which is one of the ways to realise the government’s vision of affordable healthcare for all.

"India has one of the lowest spending on healthcare globally. While it was stated that the country is set to increase the healthcare spending to 2.5 per cent of the GDP by 2025, it continues to stand at 1%. We hope to see some action around this in the upcoming budget," said Meena Ganesh, MD & CEO, Portea Medical, a consumer healthcare brand.

"Current taxation policies and regulations do not cover home healthcare and diagnostic tests and other at-home aspects still form a large part of people’s out of pocket expenses. Home healthcare is not recognized as a mainstream sector and should be brought under the ambit of governmental schemes like the Ayushman Bharat Yojna," the CEO said.

Critical healthcare equipment such as ventilators, wheelchairs, crutches, and medical equipment spare parts should be exempted from GST. This will help make quality healthcare more accessible, the CEO said.

While Dawaa Dost founder & CEO Amit Choudhary said, "The government had pushed for affordable and accessible healthcare in its last term, and we hope that this year’s budget will also have some concrete action plans to realise this vision. Innovative, tech-based, large-scale and affordable healthcare solutions are the need of the hour in India and our expectations from the budget also revolve around the same."

Neha Rastogi, Founder and COO-Agatsa, Innovator of world’s smallest and leadless ECG machine in a statement said, "The start-up ecosystem in India is thriving thanks to some conducive government policies announced in the last budget. Given this, startups in all sectors including those focusing on healthcare and health tech innovation are going to witness rapid growth in the years ahead.

"However, the issue that needs to be addressed at the outset is India’s current healthcare infrastructure and allotted budget which are not adequate to ensure universal healthcare services to all. This is where innovations in medical devices and services come into picture and we hope the budget will focus on this aspect."

"The femtech industry has a huge potential and is expected to reach $50 billion globally by 2025, as per estimates by Frost and Sullivan. Though this is a relatively new industry, it aims to address some of the age-old problems women have been facing and is projected to be the next big thing in the women’s health and hygiene market,' she said.

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