Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in association with the Global Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (GAPIO) have jointly released two position papers with the aim to augment the healthcare worker capacity in India. Titled 'Reimagining Nurse’s Role in India' and 'Formalizing Allied Healthcare Workforce in India, the detailed papers shed light on the solutions for augmenting healthcare workforce capacity in India and were presented to Dr Vinod Paul member NITI Aayog and Amitabh Kant CEO, NITI Aayog. The papers propose an integrated strategy. 

According to Dr Prathap C Reddy, Founder President, GAPIO and Founder Chairman, Apollo Hospitals Group, “Nurses are the backbone of every health system. They account for 50 per cent of the global health workforce, their roles are diverse from devoting their lives to caring for mothers and children, giving lifesaving immunisations and health advice and looking after all age groups including the older people. Given the continued shortage of both nurses and allied healthcare workforce in the overall healthcare system, India needs to review and drive transformation in this sector holistically.”

Dr Anupam Sibal, President, GAPIO and Group Medical Director, Apollo Hospitals Group said, “It is crucial to plan a holistic strategy for the nursing workforce in India that can comprehensively solve the challenges of adequate nursing staff as well as the quality of education and training of nurses in India.”

Dr Nandakumar Jairam, Vice President, GAPIO said, “We continue to face challenges in terms of the quality of allied healthcare professionals. While there has been some progress, India still has a long way to go in formalising this segment of the workforce and introduce the right quality controls."

Dr Sudhir Parikh, Secretary-General, GAPIO, added, “Studies from MOH&FW and NSSO indicate that demand for allied healthcare workers is significantly higher than supply, with disparity also being observed across states. India could need 60,00,000 - 70,00,000 total AHP by the year 2024. The current training capacity at ~1.5 lakh seats per year would fall short of achieving our objectives. We need to enhance both the capacity and quality of healthcare workforce”.

Priyanka Aggarwal, MD and Partner, Boston Consulting Group “Solutions for issues concerning nursing, need to address lack of college infrastructure, focusing on states with limited infrastructure. Tagging of colleges with operational multispecialty hospitals needs to be developed. The attractiveness of the profession needs to be enhanced for better fill rates; including through building social respect for the profession and strengthening professional development and progression. There is an opportunity to enhance current skilling pedagogy and adopt new methodologies and telenursing, robotic nursing, forensic nursing etc. and adopt the global best practices. The availability of training faculty for nursing colleges also needs to be improved.”

Kshitij Vijayvargiya, Partner, Boston Consulting Group said, “College infrastructure needs to be enhanced and awareness about job opportunities needs to be increased. The attractiveness of the profession needs to be increased by enhancing awareness in secondary schools, formalisation of staffing and deployment norms and making career progression easier."