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The Vice President, Shri Bhairon Singh Shekhawat has underlined the need to constantly harness the resources of private sector and the civil society to supplement the government’s efforts for providing medical services and healthcare, particularly to those living below poverty line, constituting 26 per cent of our population. Inaugurating the Silver Jubilee Celebrations of the Tirupati Branch of the Indian Medical Association at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, today Shri Shekhawat said that “there exist wide disparities in health standards across the country and the rural-urban divide in the context of health infrastructure is far more glaring today”.
The Vice President said that though our achievements in healthcare during the last five decades and more are quite a success story, it is certainly not an easy task to put in place a dependable public healthcare system in a country like India. ‘Over and above, we have the problem of spurious drugs and illegal manufacturing and trade in medicines which are risking the lives of patients. Even the government hospitals are not insulated from it’, he added.
Underlining that vast areas of the country remain without hospitals and healthcare support even today, Shri Shekhawat said that rural hospitals find it difficult to attract qualified doctors because government doctors, paramedics and nurses remain normally averse to rural postings. The Vice President said that our Panchayati Raj Institutions, properly empowered, have the potential to bring about an effective rural healthcare system. Participation of the people, in managing and overseeing the functioning of the health sector, especially in rural areas can be an important factor in improving the health sector and also in improving the quality of life in our villages in general, the Vice President said.
Shri Shekhawat said that ‘crores of our people are living on the margins of society, facing formidable problems of inadequate nutrition, unhygienic conditions and accompanying health hazards. Therefore, problems of food security, safe drinking water and adequate sanitation are some of the key areas of priority in the rural healthcare system. Our mission should be to serve the poor and the deprived and to help them in enjoying their fundamental right to live, not simply to live, but to live with dignity’, he underlined.
Speaking of the IT revolution in the field of healthcare through systems like telemedicine, the Vice President said that we should also prepare a knowledge-base of our highly acclaimed traditional healing systems and medicines, especially Ayurveda and Yoga to provide an alternative to the present system of Allopathy which has been increasingly found wanting in providing inexpensive and viable treatment to several critical ailments.
Lauding the Indian Medical Association’s initiative for a rural orientation in its activities through programmes like Aao Gaon Chalen, Shri Shekhawat said that we also need to pay a focused attention to the special healthcare needs of the disabled who form around 2.2 per cent of our country’s population. There is a need to help them to build their inherent capacity, confidence and self-esteem to overcome their disability to lead a normal life, he added. The Vice President also underlined the importance of creating a movement for generating awareness among the people to donate organs and shared with the audience his own recent personal experience of saving the lives of 6 persons by a young man of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, who donated his organs after suffering a fatal accident.
The Vice-President also inaugurated a small blood donation camp organised by Tirupati branch of Indian Medical Association.
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AK/HK/NSR
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