India gears up to reboot ICU standards, fix doctor drain, and cash in on global med travel

Time of India

27-05-2025

India will soon come up with a structured framework for critical care to address the infrastructure and human resource gap in the sector, officials said.
The idea, which is at a preliminary stage of discussion, could include defining resource allocation for critical care and criteria for prioritising patients during emergencies. The proposed framework could lay down standards for structure, personnel, and organisation of the critical care unit across hospitals in the country, a senior government official told ET on the condition of anonymity.
A committee has been formed under
NITI Aayog
member VK Paul to lay out standards for world-class critical care in India as the country eyes significant surge in medical value travel in the coming years, besides helping the nation prepare better for any Covid-like pandemic in future.
The Aayog is studying global standards and will soon initiate stakeholder consultations to draft an India-centric framework for critical care, the official said.
"Two evident gaps in critical care are infrastructure and human resources. India needs guidelines to fix these key aspects of critical care to up its standards and ensure that only people in genuine need avail of these services," the official added.
Experts point towards imbalance between availability and access to critical care in India.
"India faces an acute drain of talent, both doctors and support staff trained in critical care, which impacts the quality of critical care services in the country," Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, past president, Indian Medical Association, Kochi, said, adding there was a pressing need for updated specialised equipment at intensive care units to address the infrastructure gap as well.
"The framework should emphasise critical care protocols, requisite infrastructure, well trained and well credentialed doctors and support staff to raise the standards of critical care in India," he added.
India has guidelines for intensive care unit admission, but these are often ignored and admission to critical care units of ICUs happen for social reasons, sometimes depriving genuine patients of the critical care they deserve, an industry expert said, requesting not to be identified.
"Some standards are already in place but they are not adhered to on the ground largely because of scarcity of infrastructure and huge gap in demand and supply of critical care beds in the country," the expert added.
Industry body Ficci pegs the medical value travel (MVT) in India at $13 billion by 2026 compared to around $6 billion in 2022 with patients for Bangladesh, Iraq, Maldives, Afghanistan, Oman, Yemen, Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania accounting for about 88% of the total international patients visiting India.