Dr H Sudarshan Ballal, MD, FRCP (UK), Chairman of Manipal Hospitals, Manipal Health Enterprises Pvt Ltd, Bangalore elected as the President of NATHEALTH

India’s healthcare apex body NATHEALTH announced its new Leadership Team for the year 2019-20 today.  Dr. Sudarshan Ballal, Chairman, Manipal Hospitals, Manipal Health Enterprises Pvt Ltd has been elected as the President of the federation.  He succeeds Mr. Daljit Singh, President, Fortis Healthcare Limited.

Dr. Sudarshan Ballal thanked the outgoing President of NATHEALTH, Mr. Daljit Singh and warmly welcomed Mr. Rajit Mehta as Senior Vice President-NATHEALTH, along with the other members of the NATHEALTH Leadership Team – Ms. Preetha Reddy as Vice President-NATHEALTH, Dr. Badhri Iyengar as Secretary-NATHEALTH and Dr. Harsh Mahajan as Treasurer-NATHEALTH.  Mr. Siddhartha Bhattacharya, Secretary General, NATHEALTH will lead the federation with this team, towards its goal of creating a robust platform for long term growth and sustainability of India’s healthcare sector.

Speaking on emerging priorities President, NATHEALTH, Dr. Sudarshan Ballal said, this has been a truly tumultuous year for healthcare and the events of this year will certainly shape the future of healthcare in India.

The greatest and biggest news and development of 2018 is the rolling out of NHPM or Ayushman Bharat by the central government providing Rs.5 lakh coverage to about 500 million poorer sections of the society.

Stringent governmental regulations, increased public and media attention on the cost of healthcare will substantially affect the delivery of healthcare in our country. The effect of demonetization, GST and capping of prices would further impact healthcare in a big way. The greatest challenge for the healthcare sector is to” deliver 1^st world healthcare at 3^rd world costs.”

Given these challenges in the healthcare scenario NATHEALTH should focus on a much broader participation by various stake holders and be the “Voice and Face of Healthcare” in the country.

We should work along all the other forums for healthcare in the country at least in some critical areas and be the interface between the government and private sector in advising models for affordable, quality but viable healthcare for the masses. It would be crucial for NATHEALTH be an advisor and knowledge partner to the government on their policies regarding  preventive care, primary care, management of NCD, digital health, skilling and expanding the pool of specialists both in the public and private sectors.

We should also be the torch bearers for safe guarding the interests of the healthcare sector in these difficult times.

Mr. Siddhartha Bhattacharya, Secretary General-NATHEALTH said, “We welcome our new leadership team which will continue to work towards the development of the healthcare sector to benefit the people, address relevant healthcare issues and champion the progress and development of this sector.”

About Dr. H. Sudarshan Ballal

Dr. H. Sudarshan Ballal was the best outgoing student (Blue Ribbon awardee) of the Kasturba Medical College, Manipal and a recipient of many Gold Medals in MBBS and M.D. and later had his further training in the USA and had the distinction of being one of the few to be triple Board certified in Internal Medicine, Nephrology & Critical Care. He has the rare distinction of being appointed as Professor of Medicine with St. Louis University School of Medicine (USA) and is also Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Manipal University.

He was conferred the fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians, London for his contribution in Medicine.

After working as a Consultant in Nephrology and Transplantation at the St. Louis University School of Medicine, he moved back to India to head the Nephrology Unit at Manipal Hospital, Bangalore.  He has been with Manipal Hospital, Bangalore ever since its inception as the Director of Manipal Institute of Nephrology & Urology, later served Medical Director and Chairman of Medical Advisory Board and is currently holds the position of the Chairman, Manipal Hospitals, Manipal Health Enterprises Pvt. Ltd.  He is also the Chairman of Stempeutics Research Pvt. Ltd. (A Group Company of Manipal Education and Medical Group, Bangalore).

A clinician par excellence, excellent teacher and a compassionate Physician, who had setup the first postgraduate training Centre in Nephrology in Karnataka and performed the first cadaver kidney transplantation in Karnataka.

He is the recipient of numerous awards including the prestigious Rajyotsava Award by the Government of Karnataka 2005, the Namma Bengaluru Awards 2009, Dr. B. C. Roy award by the Government of Karnataka in 2010, the Trinity Vaidya Rathna Award Aryabhata International and the Teacher of Excellence Award by the National Board of Examination, New Delhi conferred for his distinguished contributions. Recently he was honoured with The Life-time Achievement Award 2018 – Presented by Bangalore Health Festival and was recognised as A legend In Nephrology by the Times Group for his continuous service and contribution in the field of Nephrology.

He was a past member of the Senate of Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences and is currently   a member of the senate of Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE recognised as an Institute of Eminence by the government of India.

He has numerous publications, in national and international journals and has been an invited speaker at many national and international forums.

He is also a Member of the Jury for Healthcare Awards sponsored by CNBC-TV18 & ICICI Lombard and The Namma Bengaluru Awards.

In addition to academic and clinical activities, Dr. Ballal has been actively involved in many Corporate Social Responsibilities through their family trust named “M/s. Belanje Sanjeeva Hegde Trust”