New Delhi: The Vice President of India, M. Venkaiah Naidu has called for medical universities to introduce teachings in human values as a part of the curriculum to inculcate moral, social and ethical values in students. He was delivering the 3rd Convocation Address of Mahatma Gandhi University of Medical Sciences and Technology, in Jaipur, Rajasthan.
Naidu appreciated the rather young University for having blossomed into an important center for providing quality medical education and healthcare in a short span of time. He complimented Dr. M.L. Swarankar and his team for their commitment and dedication towards making the institution one of the foremost centers of excellence in terms of quality teaching, training, research, innovation and affordable patient care in India.
Stating that education laid the foundation for the progress of a nation, the Vice President said that the right kind of education would inculcate citizenship values, liberate people from ignorance, empower them with knowledge, information, skills and equip them to take up new roles and responsibilities to shape not only their own destinies but also the destiny of the nation.
The Vice President opined that educational institutions for higher learning have to develop a system to impart relevant and right type of education integrated with skills. ‘India’s educational ethos needs major reforms in the context of changes that are sweeping the country and the world’ he added.
Urging universities to deliver a more comprehensive medical education, which develops the total personality of the young medical graduates, Naidu called for the inclusion of subjects like medical ethics, human behavior sciences, philosophy, culture, heritage, meditation and Yoga in the curriculum.
Naidu highlighted India’s achievements in providing basic and advanced health care since Independence and raised caution against the twin burdens of communicable and non-communicable diseases that India is bearing today.
Speaking of lopsided infrastructure development in the health sector., the Vice President called for the provision state-of-the-art healthcare facilities in the rural and remote areas on par with the modern hospitals in urban areas.
Naidu urged the private sector needs to supplement the efforts of the government, especially in bridging the urban-rural divide. He also suggested to make it mandatory for MBBS graduates to serve in rural areas before granting the first promotion to them in a bid to overcome shortage of doctors in rural areas.
Speaking of the affordability of medical care, Naidu said that medical costs were mostly met out-of-pocket by the people in India. He expressed deep concern over the debt trap into which impoverished patients got into due to medical treatments. He expressed happiness upon the launch of Ayushman Bharat – National Health Protection scheme to provide universal health care to 500 million poor and vulnerable people.
