India’s national health spend may double to 6–7% of GDP by 2047: FICCI–EY Parthenon

India has progressed a lot in the last two decades but a lot more needs to be done, the report points out. It shows that the country’s beds per capita have grown nearly 2x since 2000 (0.7 to 1.3 per 1,000 people), while MBBS seats have expanded 5x, creating a stronger workforce pipeline. Similarly, infrastructure for advanced care has surged with cathlabs per capita growing 58x, while linear accelerators (Linacs) per capita expanding 17x in the last two decades. India has also rapidly narrowed the innovation adoption gap – cutting from a lag of over 10 years in the 1990s to just 2 years today for technologies such as AI-assisted radiology and hybrid cathlabs. However, India still has one of the lowest hospital bed densities globally and a dual payor-provider fragmentation challenge with just 25–30 beds per hospital compared to over 100 internationally, and top 5 payors driving only about 40% of payouts versus 80%+ in other developed markets. Coupled with the vast disparities in access and affordability across geographies as well as patient sensibilities with respect to health, this places a formidable challenge to creating scaled solutions, it notes.