Srinagar: Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Wednesday called for making advanced healthcare accessible beyond major cities and specialised institutions, saying the country must bridge the gap between what modern medicine can provide and what is actually available to people in smaller districts and remote areas.
Addressing the inaugural ceremony of the National Summit on Quaternary Healthcare: A National Strategy for Advanced Care at SKICC Srinagar, Sinha said the challenge of providing advanced healthcare is not confined to Jammu and Kashmir but was being faced across the country.
Recalling his visit to a health centre near Akhnoor during the administration’s ‘Back to Village’ programme amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Sinha said a conversation with doctors there made him realise the difficulties faced by patients requiring diagnosis and treatment for complex diseases.
He said one of the doctors had told him that families often brought sick children to the health centre hoping for proper diagnosis and treatment, but the absence of equipment for diagnosing complex diseases left doctors helpless.
Sinha said the lack of specialised facilities often forced families from remote areas to undertake long journeys to Jammu, Chandigarh or Delhi in search of treatment.
“I feel that the patience of the mother and the patience of the father is not just in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said, stressing that the issue was much wider and required a national approach.
The Lieutenant Governor said India had made significant progress in healthcare over the past 10–12 years, including expansion of health insurance coverage, vaccination programmes, medical education and healthcare infrastructure.
He said the country had also witnessed a substantial expansion of medical infrastructure, with new AIIMS, medical colleges and MBBS seats being created across the country, including in Jammu and Kashmir.
Sinha, however, said a significant gap continued to exist between the capabilities of modern medicine and their actual availability to people.
“There is a gap and there is a distance. Earlier, perhaps, we did not think in this manner because our resources were limited. But I feel now, as the doctors were saying, the country is thinking on a much larger scale,” he said.
He said the healthcare sector must now be viewed in the larger context of the vision of a Viksit Bharat, with greater emphasis on advanced care, research and specialised treatment.
Referring to institutions such as AIIMS Delhi, PGI Chandigarh and SKIMS Srinagar, Sinha said these institutions represented the country’s specialised healthcare capabilities, but stressed that a comprehensive healthcare ecosystem still required sustained efforts.
“This programme is important because you have deep knowledge of this subject,” he told healthcare experts, researchers, scientists and administrators attending the summit.
Sinha emphasised that hospitals should not merely function as treatment centres but should also become centres of research and innovation.
“We should not only make hospitals. We should also make them centres of research initiatives,” he said, adding that clinical treatment and research should go hand in hand.
He stressed that advanced healthcare centres should have access to every facility made possible by modern science.
“Every possibility that science allows should be available in the quaternary care centre,” he said.
On healthcare infrastructure and funding, Sinha said the government was making provisions through annual budgets to strengthen and modernise the sector.
He said the country’s growing economy was creating greater opportunities for healthcare and expressed satisfaction that doctors and specialists were increasingly becoming available across different levels of care.
The Lieutenant Governor said institutions such as NITI Aayog could play an important role in developing strategies to strengthen advanced healthcare and integrate it with existing systems.
He also called for greater use of telemedicine to connect healthcare facilities across the Union Territory and ensure access to specialised expertise in remote areas.
“Advanced care without advanced doctors is not possible,” Sinha said.
Calling for greater cooperation among Himalayan states, he said they could jointly plan biomedical research and identify selected areas for coordinated research to address region-specific healthcare challenges.
The summit brought together healthcare researchers, scientists, medical professionals, administrators and representatives of various institutions to deliberate on advanced and quaternary healthcare, clinical care, research and strengthening the overall healthcare ecosystem.
Sinha said the ultimate objective should be to ensure that advances in medical science translate into accessible and affordable treatment for ordinary citizens, particularly those living away from major urban healthcare centres.