Need for making health care affordable: Rajnath : The Tribune India

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Need for making health care affordable: Rajnath

CHANDIGARH:Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said the Centre would make all efforts for improving India’s medical infrastructure and making medical facilities more integrated and affordable.

Need for making health care affordable: Rajnath

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh being honoured by Punjab Governor and UT Administrator VP Singh Badnore during the silver jubilee celebrations of the GMCH, Sector 32, in Chandigarh on Friday. Tribune photo: Pradeep Tewari



Charu Chhibber

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 9

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said the Centre would make all efforts for improving India’s medical infrastructure and making medical facilities more integrated and affordable. “Our government is working towards providing health care and health cover to the people,” he said while speaking at the silver jubilee celebrations of the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32.

Stressing the need for an integrated health care system, he said there was an urgent need for replacing the existing fragmented health care system. He noted that by doing so, the pressure on super-specialty institutes such as the All India Institute of Medical Sciences would reduce.

He pointed out that public spending in India’s health care industry had remained low and had resulted in a dilapidated network of government hospitals and clinics, especially in rural areas.

Rajnath said 95 per cent patients going to tertiary care hospitals could be treated at the primary health care level. “If the national average is taken into consideration, medical facilities in India are not adequate, especially primary health care. If primary health centres are strengthened, the burden of major institutes will reduce significantly,” he said. 

The minister also emphasised on the promotion of traditional medicine systems. He said his government was committed to promoting traditional medicinal systems like Ayurveda which remained untapped in India due to inadequate scientific research.

Rajnath also pointed out that the Centre was committed to promoting alternative medicine and had set up a separate AYUSH Ministry. Talking about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s initiative towards the promotion of yoga, he said the UN General Assembly observed June 21 as International Day of Yoga and a large chunk of the population in the West now practised yoga.

Referring to the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan started by Modi, the Union Home Minister said this cause would pay rich dividends in the times to come and help in improving the health care system in the county by eliminating the main cause of illnesses.

Rajnath called on the medical fraternity to be sensitive and compassionate towards the patients. He pointed out that honesty, straightforwardness and empathy were the core values a doctor must possess. “A person is known by his mission and motivation. A doctor’s motivation starts not in a medical school, but at the primary school and in his family,” he remarked. 

Quoting a mathematical equation, Rajnath exhorted the health care providers, “If heart is a circle, keep increasing its circumference. The bigger the circumference, more happiness you will get.”

Lauding the role of the GMCH in providing excellent medical education, the Union Home Minister said the institute was one of the best medical colleges in the country. “It is a ray of hope towards taking India on the global map in the field of medicine,” Rajnath said.

Earlier, Rajnath inaugurated the new academic block, known as the E Block of the GMCH.

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