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| Exchange Disseminated Time | BPL Ltd has informed BSE that the Company has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on March 06, 2009, with US based Company viz. Welch Allyn, a leading global manufacturer of frontline medical products and solutions to act as master distributors of the latter. The MOU would facilitate providing easy access for medical practitioners, hospitals and the public health system at large in India to state-of-the-art products, world class service and localized training programs.
In this regard, the Company has issued a Press Release dated March 06, 2009 titled "Welch Allyn Partners with BPL Healthcare to Support Emerging Indian Market"
Press Release:
"Welch Allyn, a leading global manufacturer of frontline medical products and solutions, today announced that it has partnered With BPL Healthcare to provide easy access for medical practitioners, hospitals and the public health system at large in India to state-of-the-art products, world class service and localized training programs. Under the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), BPL Healthcare will serve as a Welch Allyn Master Distributor, putting the Company closer to its prospective customers and better positioning it to provide innovative products that meet the growing needs of healthcare professionals in that part of the world.
"The BPL Healthcare business unit has one of the most comprehensive service and delivery systems in the country," said Con Hickey, senior vice president, Asia Pacific at Welch Allyn, "The strategic alliance between Welch Allyn and BPL provides us with a tremendous opportunity to tap into a ready and reliable network to support sales, service and logistics for our products. It will allow us to further broaden our reach in a country that has one of the largest and fastest growing healthcare sectors in the region."
In addition, Primary healthcare is the corner-stone of healthcare delivery system. Early diagnosis and prevention of diseases can reduce morbidity and mortality dramatically. Unfortunately, most primary healthcare centers in India remain ill-equipped. The e-Clinic - a concept developed jointly by Welch Allyn and BPL, is designed as a state-of-art primary healthcare center or a family health clinic, using world class diagnostic instruments. The e-Clinic will have facilities for general health check up and will be equipped with all Welch Allyn made front-line diagnostic products and BPL made imaging products.
This will also serve as a training center for doctors, medical students nurses on us of such equipment, e-Clinic, over the next few years will be replicated in different regions of the country. The primary goal of the e-Clinic would be to propagate the concept of a modern well-equipped clinic which will also serve as a guideline for doctors to set up their own clinics. The clinics will be telemedicine-enabled in future.
On the occasion of signing the MOU with Welch Allyn, Mr. Ajit Nambiar, Chairman and Managing Director of BPL Ltd., said “BPL’s focus on diagnostic products for the point-of-care will only drive healthcare costs down and make modem healthcare facilities available to the masses” On launching the e-Clinic, Mr. Nambiar said “such a show and tell demonstration facility will showcase global trends of a greatly empowered and connected GP clinic. The e-Clinic will represent a flaw paradigm as an integrated point of care or primary healthcare center”
BPL Healthcare was established in 1967 as a division of the flagship BPL Ltd., manufacturing diagnostic medical equipment. It is one of India pioneering organizations that has design, development and manufacturing capability for diagnostic medical devices such as electrocardiographs, vital signs monitoring systems, defibrillators, etc. with manufacturing facilities in Bangalore, Palakkad and a nationwide sales, distribution and service network.
“Our main objective in this collaboration is to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of primary level diagnosis within a healthcare infrastructure that is heavily under-resourced,” said Vijay Sinha, chief operating officer of BPL Healthcare. “By partnering with Welch Allyn we can provide reputable frontline diagnostic equipment to providers in India and bring about synergies that can help other emerging countries in Asia address their specific healthcare needs—and they are quite different from that of more developed and less populous countries.”
Welch Allyn and BPL also plan to launch an advocacy program to eliminate the use of toxic mercury from medical devices in India. Mercury, one of the world’s most ubiquitous and potent heavy metal neurotoxicants, has been an integral part of many medical devices, most prominently thermometers and sphygmomanometers. These devices break or routinely teak with regularity, adding to the global burden of mercury in the environment and exposing health care workers to the acute effects of the metal itself.
The health care sector around the world is moving to replace mercury-based medical devices with affordable, accurate and safer alternatives.
“General Physicians can play a very significant role in the healthcare of the country where the greater pan of the population remains untouched by the developments in medical sciences,” added Sinha. “With the focus that is being brought in by the BPL and Welch Allyn partnership, the ubiquitous OP would henceforth have better access to safer, more reliable diagnostic devices and services. With our Pan-India reach, we hope to bring in at least 25,000 new doctors into our fold, every year.” |
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