Healthcare fights poverty, helps in social justice: PM Modi

“When cheap and best treatment is available to the poor, his faith in the system is strengthened. If they get freedom from the worry of the cost of treatment, they work hard to get out of poverty with more determination,” the Prime Minister said, addressing a public meeting in Bhuj town of Kutch after inaugurating the K K Patel Super Specialty Hospital via virtual mode.

In the past years, all schemes in the health sector, he said, have been implemented keeping this thought in mind. He said that through the Ayushman Bharat Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadhi Yojana, poor and middle-class families are getting free medical treatment, cheaper medicines and are able to save “lakhs of crores of rupees” they would have otherwise spent on medical treatment.

Hospital in Bhuj will make good quality healthcare accessible to people at affordable price. https://t.co/ip4Y9sNVyz

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 15, 2022

“Initiatives like the Health and Wellness Centres, Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Yojana etc are helping in making medical treatment accessible to all.  Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission will make more facilities available to patients. Through Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission, modern and critical healthcare infrastructure is being created at district and block levels,” he said.

Expansion of the medical education infrastructure, he said, will result in the country getting a record number of new doctors in future. “Besides dozens of AIIMS, scores of super-speciality hospitals are being built in the country today. The target of having a medical college in each district of the country or the efforts to keep the medical education affordable will give the country a record number of doctors in the coming days,” he said.

The new hospital in Bhuj, with 100 super-specialty beds, has been set up by the Kutch Leuva Patel Samaj, an organisation of the Leuva Patel sub-caste group of the Patidar community. Modi said the new hospital, the first super-specialty facility set up by a charitable organisation, will serve lakhs of people of Kutch and thousands of jawans of the Army and paramilitary forces deployed in the border district.

“Two decades ago, there were only nine medical colleges in Gujarat and if youth of Gujarat wanted to be doctors, there were only 1100 seats available for them. But today, there is an AIIMS and more than three dozen medical colleges. As compared to 1000 seats available to children two decades ago, today there is a system in place to give opportunity to 6000 children to become doctors,” he said.

The Prime Minister, however, cautioned that though the government is upgrading and expanding healthcare facilities across the country, even adding lakhs of hospital beds may not be sufficient if people do not adopt a healthy lifestyle and take preventive steps like cleanliness, physical exercise, practising yoga.

“I have to share this with you, my brothers and sisters. This is Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav. Whatever number of hospitals we set up, just whatever number, add lakhs of (hospital) beds, they are not going to solve the problem ever. But instead, if we create social awareness, if we all perform our duty… create such an atmosphere and a situation wherein we will not have to visit a hospital in the first place… The solution to all the problems is (to remain healthy and) to avoid the need for visiting a hospital,” he said.