Minister, TMC MP exchange barbs over healthcare in West Bengal

A discussion in the Lok Sabha on sustainable development goals today turned into a war of words between a BJP minister and a TMC member over the state of hospitals in West Bengal.
Saugata Roy (TMC), while participating in the debate, referred to free facilities being extended by certain hospitals in West Bengal being ruled by his party.
When Union minister Babul Supriyo (BJP) made some remarks at this, Roy said he was a "flying visitor" to the state as he mostly remained in Mumbai.
Supriyo hit back saying being a bird gives him a "bird's eye view" of the goings-on in West Bengal.

Not willing to back down, Roy said since the union minister has lost all seven assembly seats in his Lok Sabha constituency, as well as the corporation wards, he is a "little jittery".
"I agree that I have lost all assembly seats. I am a politician. Even if I don't win, I give a good fight," Supriyo said.

Roy asked the Chair to allow him to discuss the important subject if Supriyo's "irrelevant talk" was over.
Earlier, when Adhir Ranjan Chaudhury (Cong) had also said some doctors have become indifferent to people's plight.
Ratna De Nag (TMC), who was chairing the proceedings, said not all doctors are bad. On another occasion too, when Chaudhury was complaining that some doctors are involved in private practice, she said they have been allowed to do so. Nag herself is a doctor by profession.

When the Congress member said India should go for barefoot doctors to ensure that rural areas get healthcare facilities, she asked him whether he would go for treatment to a barefoot doctor.
Barefoot doctors were farmers who received minimal basic medical and paramedical training and worked in villages of China.
Earlier, when the House started the discussion, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said it should be limited to the health sector.
She recalled that the United Nations had in 2000 chalked out millennium development goals. These were rechristened as sustainable development goals with 17 targets which have to be achieved by 2030.