Privatise health with caution, says PM

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today cautioned against "excessive privatisation" in the health care sector saying it could be dangerous for the country as it would lead to creation of two worlds.

"With excesssive privatisation, we are in the danger of creating two worlds. One which is getting high class medical care and the other not. We must never allow to happen this," he said while delivering the convocation address at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research here.

Singh, however, said he was not against the involvement of the private sector in health care. The PM stressed the need for further strengthening public institutions and said modern medical research should reach rural areas.

Singh said that both in economics and in medicine it was easy to get lost in the rarified atmosphere of high-flown research and forget ground realities of the nation.

"A not so uncommon perception among the lay public is that institutes running on public money end up being ivory towers. To a limited extent, this perception is not correct," he said.

Noting that nations do not become great only by virtue of progress, he said, "Nations become great only when the large mass of people are allowed to eat at the table of economic success."

"That is possible only if we have a population that is healthy, both physically and mentally. We cannot aspire to become a super-power some day if our population remains unhealthy," he said.

Expressing displeasure over "our failure" to provide comprehensive health care to all citizens, the prime minister said the government's mission was to deliver health care at grassroots level.

Suggesting multi-sectoral approaches and multi-pronged attacks on the health problems, he said that "in this era of super-specialisation in all disciplines it is crucial that we should not get over-compartmentalised."

Singh said there was a need to devise "imaginative ways and means" to tackle both the diseases of our past (tb and malaria) and future (diabetes, hypertension and coronary artery diseases).

Asserting that it was essential for the country to invest in the development of knowledge, singh said, "The challenge before the country is to operate on the frontiers of knowledge."

"Our educational system must be forward-looking and meet the need of the 21st century," he said adding, "We will be a shinning example in new knowledge economy."

"Communication and co-operation is the key to solving seemingly complex problems," the prime minister said adding, "If we are to keep pace with the rest of the world, we can not afford to fall behind in the communication and the information revolution."

Terming teaching as one of the noblest professions, he said it was unfortunate that teachers were not rewarded for their contributions to the society.

On the pgimer's tele-medicine initiative, Singh said it was "a heart-warming example of how we could defy all odds and make an entirely new infrastructure when we apply ourselves to the task on hand."

"Here is an instance where two leading institutions of india, namely isro and pgimer, have joined hands in a project that combines the best elements of information technology, communication technology and medical technology to create a facility that reaches out to the very door-step of the patient," he said adding, "India needs a thousand such examples."

Earlier, the prime minister awarded gold medals to six students.

In his presidential address, Health and Family Welfare Minister Ambumani Ramadoss urged the doctors and medical students to go to rural areas to serve at the grassroots level.