“Dream big”, Dr Harsh Vardhan tells AIIMS
medicos
Bhubaneswar ,The central government is
committed to making Odisha a model state in terms of health infrastructure and
expects the state’s competent and committed medical professionals to hold up an
example for the rest of India. Stating this at a press conference here today at
the end of his two-day Odisha tour, Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Health Minister,
said that AIIMS-Bhubaneswar and its upcoming satellite in Balasore, with all
their state-of-art equipment and specialised departments, would entail an
eventual investment of about Rs 1,500-2,000 crore.
More investment is being considered for Odisha
as this state has the potential to be the leading health services destination
in eastern India, the Health Minister stated. The private sector is also
setting up hospitals. It also has a vibrant voluntary sector in the form of
NGOs and grassroots health activists. Modernisation of existing state
government hospitals is continuing simultaneously.
Nabakalebar preparations
“The Puri district hospital should be improved
immediately because during next July-August’s Nabakalebar festival more than 50
lakh pilgrims are expected to visit. I went into the details of the proposed
expansion project to make it a medical college and asked the local authorities
to expedite the process of land acquisition so that the work could begin at the
earliest,” the Minister said.
Dr Harsh Vardhan inspected the hospital this
morning to get an idea of the existing facilities. The 325-bed hospital,
constructed in 1840, has only 34 doctors, 36 nurses and 52 attendants. He also
spoke to the patients, some of whom were accommodated on the floor for want of
adequate number of beds. The Minister learnt from them their problems, which
were the result of poverty and he turned to the staff and district
administration officials for more details as to their nutrition, sanitation,
income consistency, etc.
Noting that the number of beds in Puri district
hospital has grown by less than 1 percent since 1980 despite the town
attracting the largest number of tourists in India, Dr Harsh Vardhan assured
that he would personally oversee the implementation of the pending works so
that the manpower and facility of the hospital could be augmented in time for
the Nabakalebar festivities.
Doctors’ duty
Reviewing the state’s health services profile,
Dr Harsh Vardhan noted that Odisha’s infant and maternal mortality rates are
higher than the national average. The number of primary health centres is still
below target. Most stark is the shortfall of doctors and key specialists like
gynaecologists and paediatricians, nurses, health workers, technicians and
other vital human resource, he noted.
Dr Harsh Vardhan said that in his interactions
with students and faculty members of AIIMS-Bhubaneswar yesterday he had urged
them to convert the dream of accomplishing the health goals of the country into
a reality.
He told the faculty members, “You are doctors
of AIIMS and therefore something special in the perception of people. You are
expected to be an intellectual, gifted with extraordinary acumen. Society and
the country expect you to brainstorm on the problems of the health sector and
design solutions which could improve the lives of ordinary Indians.”
His advice for the students was, “Please be
conscious that you are receiving world class medical education at next to no
cost to yourselves. To develop one doctor in AIIMS the taxpayer pays Rs 8-10
crore. The poorest of poor Oriyas and Indians are subsidising you. So when you
become doctors please work unselfishly so that India can achieve the United
Nations Millennium Development Goals.”
Dr Harsh Vardhan acknowledged that doctors and
medical students face numerous problems. But he urged them to be more positive
and see the bigger picture. “Take the paucities as challenges. Each challenge
teaches you a new lesson. What separates ordinary doctors from AIIMS-trained
doctors is ingenuity – the quality of being unmoved by complicated cases and
cool-headedly applying novel treatment lines. The training for that comes from
beyond the text books,” he remarked.
The Health Minister noted that a large number
of trained medicos are leaving India each year for more lucrative careers
abroad. Though the government does not have a policy of making them repay the
subsidies that funded their education, it is up to the doctors to be more
concerned about the health goals of the nation and contribute their mite to
achieving them, he stated.
National Health Mission
Dr Harsh Vardhan said he is in the process of
reviewing the National Health Mission (NHM) which will be completing a decade
in April 2015. He is constantly interacting with experts from diverse
backgrounds on meeting the unachieved goals, he said.
“There is a need to make NHM more inclusive. I
plan to involve well meaning citizens, NGOs, religious groups and seek local
level solutions. We will make ‘health for all’ a social movement,” the Minister
said.
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