The Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Shatrughan Sinha has called upon the NRI/PIO community to set up super speciality, corporate hospitals and advanced diagnostic centers in India. The corporate sector can collaborate with the Indian Diaspora in establishing such modern medical care facilities not only in metros but also in other cities, he said.

Speaking at a session on Healthcare and Pharma at Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Celebrations, here on Friday, the minister said that hospitals providing such tertiary facilities will also have the potential of attracting clients from abroad for diagnosis and treatment, and will reverse the trend of Indians going abroad for treatment. "The Government strongly encourages establishing such centres to provide health services to overseas patients by extending fiscal incentives to their earnings in foreign exchange, including the status of 'deemed exports' to such healthcare services", the Minister said.

He emphasised the need for raising investment in health as envisaged the National Health Policy, 2002. He said that the Health Policy welcomes participation of the private sector in all areas of health activities - primary, secondary and tertiary. "The concept of equity plays an important role in allocation of the public resources in healthcare. Because of its reach to the needy, the primary and secondary healthcare gets more than 80 percent of public resources for health. The tertiary healthcare is an area that needs a lot of investment, where Indian Diaspora can play a big role," he explained.

Stressing the need to invest in medical research and development, Sinha said that financial resources as well as scientific and technical expertise of the NRIs/PIOs can be of vital help in this area. Many premier institutions in the country - both in public and private sectors are involved in pioneer research, and collaboration from NRIs/PIOs can be of great mutual benefit. Medical scientists of Indian origin have been involved in advanced research work in many developed countries such as USA and UK. He said that the Indian Council of Medical Research is preparing a database of eminent Indian researchers for meaningful collaboration.

Another important concern of the Government, the Minister stated is to provide quality medical education. NRIs/PIOs can contribute a great deal by strengthening the infrastructure of government medical colleges, apart from establishing new medical institutions. In order to make such colleges self-sustainable, the management has been permitted to admit students from abroad. The earlier ceiling of 15 percent of the admission capacity is also being relaxed in view of court judgements. Private medical colleges are also being permitted to regulate fee for such foreign students in order to raise funds for their development, he told the gathering.

Sinha also called for popularising the Indian systems of traditional medicines in different countries. The inherent advantages such as cost effectiveness of the products and less capital requirement for manufacturing, in the growing popularity of natural plant based products, the medicines of Indian traditional systems could be popularised in foreign countries by the Indian Diaspora. The diseases for which the western system of medicine has very little to offer and the available drugs are too toxic, the Indian systems of medicine have therapies available. However, such drugs may require proper standardisation and quality control utilizing modern scientific approach. Therefore, synergy of the traditional Indian medicines and western scientific development can assist in producing safe, efficacious and quality drugs at affordable prices. Medical tourism is an exciting opportunity particularly from the point of view of popularising traditional Indian therapies and medicines, the Minister said.