Governor for affordable healthcare for people

​Hyderabad: Governor E S L Narasimhan on Monday advised the government to hold camps in selected areas as a pilot project to screen the people for diabetes, hypertension and eye related problems.

Speaking at the inaugural function of Bio Asia -2017, with a theme, Power of the Past and Force of the Future at HICC, the Governor asked the corporate hospitals to become partners in this programme to help the government.

Stating that healthcare has become a challenge these days, the Governor said viruses like Ebola and other had been spreading. Funding has become a problem in the research and development of drugs. He stressed the need to provide more funds for research and development of drugs.

The Governor said for the prosperity of the nation a healthy population was necessary and healthcare sector has an important role to play in achieving this goal.

“Even though life expectancy has risen, the quality of life has been deteriorating. The aging population has become a problem to the country. The healthcare sector must take the responsibility of providing quality life to the aged people,” Narasimhan said.

He stressed on the need to provide affordable and available healthcare to the people and rural areas should be served with health care services.

He urged the Union Health Research Department Secretary Soumya Swaminathan, who was on the dais, to ensure that the labels printed on the medicine packages were readable. He told the drug control authorities not to ban drugs on the pretext of adverse effect to other organs.

In his address, Industries minister KT Rama Rao said Hyderabad has started dominating India's vaccine production output, and contributes significantly to the global vaccine production while inching closer to be recognised as a global disease prevention capital of the world.

Genome Valley was a shining example of Hyderabad’s dominant position in Life Sciences sector. The cluster has grown tremendously to become home to over 200 companies, which includes over 50 global powerhouses, employing a scientific workforce of over 10,000, he said.

Soumya Swaminathan said that there was a need to provide more funds to basic research in healthcare sector. She said that malnutrition issue has become a big problem for the country and it has been leading to TB.

She lauded Telangana State government’s initiative to launch TB Free Telangana campaign. There was need to change the policy of Public Distribution System to address the malnutrition issue. New diseases like SARS, bird flue and Zika have been throwing a challenge to health care sector.