Governor exhorts doctors to serve people in rural areas

Today 80% of healthcare facilities are run by the private sector but they are used only by 20% of the population. The remaining 80% people of the country can’t afford the expensive treatment of private hospitals. Government hospitals are the only hope for them. These facts were shared by Prof MC Sharma, director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, while addressing the gathering at the 21st convocation of the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences on Saturday. Prof Sharma was the chief guest on the occasion.

Speaking at the event, he spoke about how, despite handling heavy patient loads, government doctors were not as well paid as their private hospital counterparts. “There are plenty of those who take up the medical profession but few who work with compassion and dedication. Today, if the government wants to retain medical talent in institutes like the PGI, they will have to come out with a concrete plan to financially reward doctors,” he said.

Calling PGI “the jewel in the crown of Uttar Pradesh”, Prof Sharma said the institute needed “perfect planning to bring it up to the international level”.

“For that constant evaluation of work by every department is necessary. In the coming 10 years, PGI must aim to double its faculty, and in the next two years, it must target doubling its student strength,” he added.

Speaking on the occasion, governor Ram Naik, who presided over the function in his capacity as the visitor of the institute, urged the students who received their degrees to “bring a smile on the face of the patients they treat”.

“It is easy to take the oath of medicine but hard to follow it,” he said. Naik also exhorted doctors to serve people in rural areas. “The medical facilities in rural areas are not good as medical graduates neglect the rural poor,” said the governor.

Chief secretary Rahul Bhatnagar, also the president of the institute, said that state government would extend all help to the PGI administration to make the institute the “number one medical care institute of country”.

LUCKNOW :