HT Correspondent
Varanasi, December 28
FORMER UNION Health and Family Planning Minister Dr. Karan Singh said that India could become a major centre of health services for the developing countries.
He was speaking as the chief guest on the inaugural function of six-day conference of Association of Surgeons of India ‘ASICON-06’ at Swatantrata Bhawan in Banaras Hindu University here on Wednesday. General surgery department of Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS-BHU) has organised the conference.
“We can provide world class surgical facilities at one-tenth cost as compared to developed countries,” he claimed, adding, “The tradition of surgery is three thousands years old in India.” “At a time when a small country like Singapore is promoting its medical facilities, why not India?” he asked.
However, he expressed concern over the poor state of medical facilities in rural areas of the country. “We have got world class medical facilities in metropolitan cities but if we move 80 or 100 kilometers away from metros then the scene is entirely different,” he said.
“The medical services of rural India is limited to primary health centres but these PHCs even do not have basic standard medical facilities,” he said and stressed the need to equip PHCs with state-of-art medical facilities. He said that even doctors (specially government doctors) were reluctant to extend their services in rural areas.
Dr. Karan Singh stressed the need of setting up of trauma centres on the national highways in view of increasing cases of accidents. “With the growth of infrastructure, the number of accidents have also increased and therefore there was need to set up trauma centres on national highways,” he suggested.
Vice-Chancellor of BHU, Prof. Panjab Singh, president of ASI, Prof. KS Gopinath, immediate past president of ASI, Prof. RB Singh and president (Elect) of ASI, Dr. C. Palanivelu were also present on the occasion. Organising secretary and head of general surgery department at IMS-BHU, Prof. VK Shukla proposed the vote of thanks.