Prez rues poor health infra

Hyderabad: President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated the Bansilal Malani College of Nursing established by the Mahila Dakshata Samiti in Hyderabad on Saturday.

Speaking on the occasion, the President expressed concern over the deficiencies in the health infrastructure of the country.

He said the only long lasting solution was to create cooperative structures comprising the government and private stakeholders as well as civil society.

In fact, the developmental goals of health, education, livelihood etc cannot be achieved by the government alone. Such cooperative structures were relevant for all of them.

The President said there was a phenomenal shortage of about 2.4 million nurses in our country and a decrease in the number of nurses from about 1.65 million in 2009 to about 1.56 million in 2015.

This indicated a worry-some trend. At the same time, our infrastructure also comprised of just 1.53 lakh sub-centres, 85,000 PHCs and about 5,000 Community Health Centres in a nation of 130 crore people living in more than 5,000 towns and 6.4 lakh villages, the President said.

“It is essential to look for models where in all stakeholders participate rather than the government alone,”
he said.

The President praised the leading role played by the Mahila Dakshata Samiti in women’s empowerment and recalled the contributions of the Samiti’s founding members such as Suman Krishankant, Prof Pramila Dandavate and Mridula Sinha, the Governor of Goa.

He said real empowerment of women would be possible only through education, encouragement of economic self-dependence and provision of opportunities enabling the unfolding of one’s full potential.

The President said it was unfortunate that today when average overall literacy in India was 74%, women’s literacy was less than 65 percent. He said a society which did not empower its women would end up as a loser and called for renewed efforts in this direction.