"Remarkable": PM Modi lauds doctors after India crosses 10 crore tele-consultations mark

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday extended congratulations to the country as India achieved a remarkable achievement of providing telemedicine services to more than 10 Crore patients.

Taking to Twitter, PM Modi, said, "10,00,00,000 tele-consultations is a remarkable feat. I laud all those doctors who are at the forefront of building a strong digital health eco-system in India."

Earlier on Thursday Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya informed that the Central government's national telemedicine service eSanjeevani registered over 10 crore teleconsultations.

He said that over 57 per cent of the beneficiaries of eSanjeevani are women and around 12 per cent of beneficiaries are senior citizens.

"eSanjeevani is a revolution in the health sector of the country. India has crossed a landmark milestone in its eHealth journey. The Government of India's national telemedicine platform - eSanjeevani- registered another landmark by providing teleconsultation services to 10 crore beneficiaries," said Mandaviya.

Further appreciating the healthcare services being provided through the digital platform of teleconsultation, Mandaviya noted that 100.11 million patients were served at 115,234 Health and Wellness Centres (as spokes) through 15,731 hubs and 1,152 online OPDs populated with 229,057 medical specialists and super-specialists trained in telemedicine.

"Today, the country has achieved the target of 10 crore 'e-Sanjeevani teleconsultations, making the citizens of the country available for expert doctor's advice sitting at home. Under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi ji, the country is continuously getting stronger in the digital health ecosystem," he said in a tweet.

eSanjeevani has been augmented further to support over 1 million consultations in a day, so far, the platform has peaked to serve 5,10,702 patients in a day.

eSanjeevani - the National Telemedicine Service of India is the world's largest telemedicine implementation in primary healthcare.

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"eSanjeevani has shown as a blessing, especially to people in rural areas where it was harder to access care," he said.

The Health Minister said that it has since found much wider application across the health spectrum and has transformed primary healthcare services in our country.

"It can be safely assumed that through ICT, eSanjeevani has democratised healthcare. It is reassuring to note that over 57 per cent of the beneficiaries of eSanjeevani are women and around 12 per cent of beneficiaries are senior citizens. This platform also goes to reflect that the platform is finding its reach in the more vulnerable sections of the population where its effect is fetches maximum impact. This speaks volumes about the telemedicine platform and the extent to which it has reinvented itself over time to meet the growing demands of healthcare in India", he added.

Telemedicine entails the delivery of health services from a distance using the internet and it not only extends the reach of health services but also improves the quality of health services besides saving time and money.

The rollout of eSanjeevani in India is supposedly the first of its kind of digital transformation in the delivery of health services at a national scale by a developing country, it said.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, eSanjeevani not only brought about a huge digital transformation in the delivery of health services but had also boosted the digital health ecosystem in the country.