PM asks private hospitals to supplement efforts of government

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday said private hospitals had an obligation to provide medicalcare at affordable cost, and social obligation to provide free medicalcare to the very poor.

Laying the foundation stone for Apollo Reach Hospitals and inaugurating the Vasan Eye Care and Research Institute in Karaikudi, he said private hospitals should supplement the efforts of the government in providing affordable healthcare.

Under the National Rural Health Mission, about Rs 63,000 crore was released to the states in the six years till March, 2011. Over 140,000 personnel, including doctors, specialists, nurses and para-medics, had been added to the health system and the government had supported to construct several thousand district and sub-district hospitals, primary health centres and sub-centres, he added.

Apollo Reach Hospitals, Apollo Hospitals' rural healthcare facility brand, in Karaikudi has around 110 beds with services in around 21 specialities including cardiology and cardio thoracic surgery, neurosciences, orthopaedics, emergency and critical care.

Commenting on the need for having rural healthcare programmes, Prathap C Reddy, chairman, Apollo Hospitals Group, said, “Over 46 per cent of our population still needs to travel over a 100-km to reach healthcare and large parts of semi-urban and rural India do remain largely underserved.”

Preetha Reddy, managing director, Apollo Hospitals Group, said the group aimed to have 200 Apollo Reach Hospitals in district headquarters. At present, there are around 10 Apollo Reach Hospitals operational.

Vasan Eye Care
The 100th eyecare centre of Vasan Eye Care would offer services across 38 eyecare specialities. The company would expand its services to 125 centres by the end of the current fiscal, said AM Arun, chairman, Vasan Healthcare Group.

The group is planning to open more hospitals in New Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Rajkot, Nagpur, Pune, Kolhapur, Nashik, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Indore, Bhopal and Bhubaneswar. The network is also opening up hospitals in Dubai, Oman and Colombo by the end of the current fiscal.

The Prime Minister, speaking at the opening ceremony of Ramanujan Centre for Higher Mathematics at Alagappa University, Karaikudi, said the country needed to emphasise more on mathematics education.

“We need to carry forward the legacy of great mathematicians like Aryabhata, Brahmagupta and Ramanujan. This becomes especially important because mathematics is finding increasing use in the study of other disciplines,” he added.