Our Executive Chairman Dr. BS Ajaikumar has been featured in Express Healthcare magazine for a thought leadership article on 'The Compelling Case for Universal Healthcare'.

The article highlights that healthcare disparities can never be eliminated through price control; universal healthcare can alone serve the larger cause of quality treatments and lasting patient outcomes. It's in reference to the Hon. Supreme Court judgement urging the government to enforce parity by determining fees chargeable to patients in response to a Public Interest Litigation, thereby implying that private hospitals should charge the same rates as their public counterparts. This directive has yet again highlighted the widespread apathy and ignorance that has adversely affected the healthcare sector performance and prospects over the year. Government hospitals are funded by taxpayers’ money, and they are supposed to provide subsidized, quality healthcare services to people from the lower socio-economic strata. People who can afford the standard cost of treatments wilfully approach private hospitals. Customer is the king even as a patient, and he or she decides which hospital to approach for treatment based on their priorities and preferences. Private healthcare is value-added, but it is nota monopoly. Sadly, the regulatory and judiciary bodies are treating it just like a monopoly and making life more difficult for private players than it already is.

Dr. Ajai further added that The Hon. Supreme Court should not have passed such an arbitrary directive without adequate knowledge of the healthcare dynamic. If the whole approach is only about taking extreme steps, it is better to nationalize healthcare and be done with it once and for all. Private healthcare players will then get out of the system and switch to other sectors. The Supreme Court directive treads in a wrong direction which will decimate an efficient system providing world-class healthcare at cost-effective rates. If parity is to be achieved by such means, then why single out healthcare? Why not ask the hospitality industry to do the same? Why not mandate advocates to maintain parity in the fees they charge their clientele? For that matter, why not include every sector in the purview?