Indigenous Development of Patient and Health Care Systems—A Realistic Approach

Abstract

A sizeable amount of foreign exchange is lost every year due to the avoidable import of Patient and Health Care Systems into the country. During the year 1974–75 intensive and cardiac care units alone worth more than a crore of rupees were imported into the country by three international giants. Our hospitals and clinics are in a bad shape and by international standards several decades behind time. Indigenous development of patient and health care systems in the country needs a realistic approach and an understanding and co-operation between users, manufacturers and the government.

Users must realize technology in India cannot develop as fast as in the US or other advanced countries. It takes about 2 years for newly developed equipment to reach India and another 3 to 4 years to design and develop this equipment indigenously provided necessary and essential components are freely available in the international market. A development gap of about 5 to 6 years is thus inevitable. The users (the medical profession) must appreciate this fact and not insist on the absolutely new, in the interest of progress and development in the country.

The manufacturers should carefully study the list of items required by the users and select only a few. Any particular item should not be taken by too many firms. This is essential as demands are limited and large amounts of money may have to be invested in R & D to produce equipment of high levels of quality, reliability and safety.

The government must not allow any collaborations where suitable indigenous know-how exists or is likely to be evolved within a specified period of time. The government must not allow import of new equipment in this particular domain as according to the recent findings of the MRTPC, indigenous know-how in this field is fairly advanced.

New equipment, however, may be imported for study by manufacturers in the line, to enable them to produce new and improved models.