New Delhi (NVI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi today urged for maximum discussion and participation on three things including tele-medicine, ‘Make in India’ in the health sector and IT-based health services, amid the Covid-19 crisis in the country.
The PM was addressing the 25th Foundation Day of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences at Bengaluru via video conferencing.
Addressing the 25th anniversary programme of RGUHS. https://t.co/tCchT1oEgA
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 1, 2020
“Can we think of new models that make tele-medicine popular on a larger scale,” he said while calling for discussion and participation on advances in tele-medicine.
Speaking on the second thing- ‘Make in India’ in the health sector, PM said that the initial gains in this makes him optimistic as the domestic manufacturers have started production of PPEs and have supplied about 1 crore PPEs to Covid warriors.
On third topic- IT related tools for healthier societies, PM said: “I am sure you have heard of ‘ArogyaSetu’, 12 crore health-conscious people have downloaded it. This has been very helpful in the fight against Coronavirus.”
Apart from that, PM said that “In the battle of Invisible vs Invincible, our medical workers are sure to win.” He was referring to coronavirus as “Invisible” and all frontline workers or Covid warriors as “Invincible”.
“At the root of India’s brave fight against COVID-19 is the hardwork of the medical community and our CORONA warriors. In fact, doctors and medical workers are like soldiers, but without the soldiers’ uniform,” he said while lauding the efforts of all frontline workers in combating corona.
In his address, PM also expressed concern at violent incidents, owing to mob mentality, against the front-line workers and said several steps have been taken by the Government to curb them. He said that the Government also provided an insurance cover of Rs 50 Lakhs to those on the front-line.
The Prime Minister further said that his government has given top-most priority to reforms in health and medical education. He said the government is broadly working on four pillars.
He said the first pillar would be Preventive Health Care where in the emphasis would be importance of Yoga, Ayurveda and General Fitness. He said more than 40,000 Wellness Centres were opened with a key focus on controlling life style related diseases. “The success of Swachch Bharat mission is another key area of preventive health care,” the PMO quoted his as saying
On second pillar – Affordable Healthcare- PM highlighted the success of Ayushman Bharat. He said that it is the world’s largest healthcare scheme and in less than two years, 1 crore people have benefitted from it, especially women and those living in rural areas.
“The third pillar is- Improvements on the supply side,” Modi said, adding that a nation like Indian has to have proper medical infrastructure and medical education infrastructure.
The fourth pillar, he said would be mission mode implementation of all the schemes and that it is very crucial for the success of a good idea.
The PM also cited how the implementation of the National Nutrition Mission is helping youngsters and mothers and also how India is determined to eliminate Tuberculosis by 2025, which is 5 years ahead of the global target of 2030.
