New Delhi, Apr 7 (IANS): Leading digital healthcare platform Practo on Wednesday launched online consultations in 15 vernacular languages.

This initiative will allow users to choose a doctor who can speak in their preferred language including Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Kannada and Bengali -- with more to be added soon.

"With a single-minded focus on creating equitable access to quality healthcare, Practo has devoted the past 12 years in building products that suit the needs of a heterogeneous user base. This has given rise to new products and more layers in older ones," Siddhartha Nihalani, VP - Product Growth, Practo, said in a statement.

"In enabling interactions in native languages for online consultations -- that undoubtedly enjoys wide acceptance -- we hope to be one step closer to turning our vision of building access to quality healthcare into reality," Nihalani added.

Given that 9 out of 10 new Internet users in India are native language speakers, an initiative like this will be critical in bridging the digital divide and overcoming language barriers in India's growing digital healthcare ecosystem, the company said.

The vernacular language support feature will now be available on both Practo app and website.

The company is also planning to introduce new interface capabilities to make the doctor-patient interaction more seamless and engaging.