Suu Kyi calls for 'spiritual health' in improving lives

Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has called for inclusion of spiritual health to help improve the life of people across the world.
Suu Kyi, the chairperson of Burma's National League for Democracy (NLD), also said that her country, though small, has its values to offer to the much wealthier and progressive world.
"Please look at the spiritual aspect of health. Spiritual health is as simple as physical and mental health," she said while speaking at the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) here last night.
Addressing experts and policy makers in health from 67 nations, she said, "We can see a healthy society...But we also need the kind of spiritual values that I'm sure will build a healthy society. The kind of innovation in healthcare is one that is rooted in human values, rooted in spirituality in the broadest and most embracing sense of the word, which will help us come together".

Referring to Myanmar, she said, "there is much still to be done in my country".
"Burma as a country, I think has something to offer to the world - to the much wealthier and much progressive world - because we are a country with values which can contribute towards a healthier society for all of us," she said.

Commenting on a view expressed at the Summit that "we are living in the best of times", she said: "I do not want to live in the best of times. I would like to live at a time when I can be sure that we are going to be better and better and that is what I would like innovation in healthcare to be that we are now living in a time when our world can get better and better."

Suggesting inclusion of spirituality aspect in healthcare, she said, "Please do not just think of healthcare in terms of technology, in terms of training and in terms of medical education. Please think of healthcare in terms of a whole society, in terms of nurturing it...," she said.
She said a healthy society in its true sense would mean this small world could be a happier place for all to live in.