With the increasing stress of hectic-schedules and tight deadlines becoming a part of our daily routines, it’s no surprise that we have witnessed a dramatic rise in the incidence of cardio-vascular related diseases across the length and breadth of our urban landscape. A number of ailments, for long considered to be the exclusive preserve of the elderly and frail, have in recent years made steady inroads into newer age-groups, with instances of 27 year olds suffering heart attacks in the middle of a heated game of football no longer raising eyebrows for the most part. What does come as a surprise, though, is the fact that our country cousins are doing just as badly when it comes to matters of the heart. As recent surveys have shown, heart diseases have emerged as the number one killer in both urban as well as rural India, with your choice of residence not really granting you any reprieve. So if you thought an escape from the concrete mess of our urban jungles, into the serene environs of our pristine heartland would serve as an escape route, you might as well remain seated in that leather couch of yours. If that weren’t depressing enough, there’s yet more to come. A recent WHO report points out that cardiovascular diseases have almost quadrupled over the last 40 years, and by 2020, close to 60% of cardiac patients worldwide will be from India. And here’s one more nugget you could chew on, besides the chicken one you had for your exceedingly unhealthy breakfast- we will also, on average, be likely to suffer a heart attack six years earlier than people in other parts of the world…yeah… You read that right …if that doesn’t stop you from digging into that fourth piece, I don’t know what will.
Against this background, it comes as no small relief to note that GE Healthcare, the USD 16-billion British-based subsidiary of the General Electric Company (GE), has recently come out with two advanced cardiac care solutions- GE MAC 600 ECG and GE VIVID P3 ultrasound system- designed and developed in India, with the aim to help provide better and more affordable early cardiac care for people across the country. Both these devices seek to provide easily accessible solutions for heart- related problems, specifically targeting the rural areas where adequate medical facilities are few and far between. The GE MAC 600 ECG is a lightweight potable ECG device, ideal for doctors and clinics located in the hinterland, and with a price-tag ranging from Rs 60,000-75,000-it is nearly 80% cheaper than similar equipment currently imported from foreign shores. The VIVID P3, meanwhile, is a cardiac imaging ultrasound system, developed for the Indian market, and at Rs 11-12 lakh, will cost nearly half of its currently available counterparts do. However, GE is not stopping at cardiovascular diseases alone- with the highly sedentary lifestyle that most Indians proudly subscribe to (no, climbing the stairs when the lights are out doesn’t count as exercise), the American behemoth had marked India out as a special growth market as early as 2007 itself, coming out with a country specific, 'In India, for India' strategy, that has seen it roll out eleven solutions for the Indian market already, with several more in the pipeline. With a target of $1-billion in sales in the South Asian market over the next five-years, it can surely expect to get there on the back of the latent demand that undoubtedly exists amongst some of the unfittest people found anywhere in the world.
The heavy price that such an un-healthy state of affairs extracts, not just from the individual concerned but from the country as a whole, is simply far too high for us to ignore any longer. As per a recent finding by the National Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, the loss of healthy, fit working days in rural India, on account of poor healthcare facilities is estimated to be at nearly 12-14%. Clearly, for a country that has set its sights upon a global leadership role in the economic realm, premised to a large extent on the availability of a large young workforce, correcting such a depressing scenario should be nothing short of a priority, and GE has certainly made the right beginning. At the same time, it’s high time we ourselves took some responsibility for getting ourselves back in order…and sitting in front of a computer screen with your eyes fixed is certainly not going to help...