Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh on Saturday said that India is fast emerging as the world’s favourite cost-effective healthcare destination, and India has already taken a lead in the areas of preventive healthcare and integrated healthcare.

Dr Jitendra Singh said this while inaugurating the annual conference of the Indian Academy of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery organised here by Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Narayana Superspeciality Hospital.

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Dr Jitendra Singh asserted that Ayushman Bharat is so far the world’s best health insurance scheme and credit goes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for having conceptualised it.

This is possibly the only health insurance scheme in the world which offers the option of seeking insurance cover even for a pre-existing disease, like for example, if today a person is detected having cancer, he can thereafter go and get himself insured to receive the financial support for treatment which is not seen anywhere even among the developed nations, added Dr Singh.

He said that by bringing in Ayushman Bharat, India has moved from a sectoral and segmented approach of health service delivery to a comprehensive need-based health care service.

Dr Jitendra Singh said that in the last nine years India has turned into a cost effective medical destination and this has been possible because of several path breaking healthcare reforms and enabling provisions brought in by Prime Minister Narendra Modi ever since he took over in 2014.

Previously India was hardly known for any preventive healthcare but today India is recognised as the vaccination hub of the world having produced DNA Covid Vaccine, the world’s first intra-nasal Covid Vaccine, India’s first indigenously developed vaccine ‘CERVAVAC’ for the prevention of cervical cancer and many other vaccines for different diseases, Dr Singh added.

Dr Jitendra Singh said that healthcare has been the top priority of this government which can be judged from the statistics that from mere 145 medical colleges, the number has increased to 260, 16 AIIMS, hundreds of Dialysis Centres, etc.

Besides others, the annual conference was attended by Padma Dr Mohan Kameswaran, IAOHNS Chairman, Dr Madan Kapre, President IAOHNS, Dr P VijayaKrishanan, Decrease IOAHNS, Dr Sunil Kotwal, Organizing Chairman IOAHNS, Dr Rohan Gupta, Organizing Secretary IOAHNS, Dr IP Singh and Dr RS Anand Kumar.