“The health policies should be formulated involving the medical experts. The over all objective of any policy should be to extend the benefits to the last person of the society. It is the section of the society about whom everybody talk but nobody does anything. If we have truly to reach this section the campaigns targetting them should be in their own languages or dialects. It could develop a hope for these people,? said RSS Sahsarkaryavah Shri Sureshrao Joshi who is popularly known as Bhaiyaji Joshi. He was inaugurating a three-day seminar on health in Dehradun on February 15. The seminar had been organised at Forest Research Institute. About 80 health experts from 22 states of the country participated in the seminar. The seminar held elaborate discussion on various aspects of health in 12 sessions. The seminar concluded on February 17.
Shri Joshi further said 70 per cent of the medical services in India benefited just 30 per cent of the population. He also highlighted the fate of 10 crore Vanvasis and the 20 per cent BPL, slum dwellers, who remain deprived of medical services.
Speaking at the concluding ceremony Uttarakhand Chief Minister Shri BC Khanduri urged the practitioners of traditional Indian medicines not to feel inferior. ?Rather we should have the superiority complex,? he said, urging them to revive the ancient medical systems. He emphasised that the mental health was more important than physical health. ?We Indians always tend to maintain personal hygiene but neglect community health by dumping garbage at public places,? he observed.
Uttarakhand Health Minister Dr Ramesh Pokhariyal ?Nishank? said to meet the shortage of nursing staff in government hospitals, the state government is going to establish four BSc Nursing colleges. ?By next year, the first such college would become operational in Dehradun,? he said, adding that two Ayurvedic Colleges would be established in Srinagar and Almora very shortly. He hailed the effective services rendered by ?108 Pt Deendayal Upadhyaya Emergency Service? to the people of Uttarakhand. ?In just 8-9 months, the EMRI personnel have successfully handled over 7500 maternity cases. Of these, about 250 babies were delivered in the ambulances itself,? he pointed out.
In the first session on mother and child care, Dr DK Tamang said, ?Mother and child health is the most important aspect for medical fraternity. Poor medical facilities in remote areas of the country have created major irregularities for patients.
Dr Prabhat Joshi said poor medical services to pregnant women results in increase in mortality rate. ?We still believe that midwives are better than doctors when it comes to deliveries. It is a very wrong notion.
Arogya Bharati, Vishwa Ayurveda Parishad, Ayurveda Vyas Peeth, Jankalyan Samiti and Doctor'sCell of BJP also helped in the seminar. Dr Aditya Kumar, Vice-chairman of Uttarakhand State Medicinal Plants Board was convener of the seminar. Dr Puneet Agrawal, Dr Raghvendra Kulkarni, Dr Narendra Mehrotra, Dr Mayaram Uniyal, Dr Mahesh Sharma, Dr Madhusudan Pandey, Dr Naresh Prasad, Dr Anant Kulkarni, Dr Hitesh Joshi, Dr Vinod Prakash Upadhyaya, Dr BM Gupta, Dr Ajit Narayan Mishra also spoke on various issues related to health.
By Ravindra Saini
