On Friday 15th April 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the country will get a record number of doctors in the upcoming ten years. PM Modi made this statement while inaugurating the KK Patel Super Speciality Hospital in the Bhuj district of Gujarat via video conferencing.
While speaking in the inaugural program of the hospital with state-of-art healthcare facilities, PM Modi said, “This hospital in Bhuj will make good quality healthcare accessible to people at an affordable price. Two decades ago, there were nine medical colleges in Gujarat with only 1100 seats. Today we have more than 36 medical colleges with 6000 seats.”
Assuring that the nation will soon get a record number of medical practitioners, he said, “Whether it is the goal of building medical colleges in every district of the country or efforts to make medical education accessible to all, the country is going to get a record number of new doctors in the coming ten years.”
He further said, “Leaving behind the devastation caused by the earthquake, the people of Bhuj and Kutch are now writing the new fate of this region with their hard work. Today, there are many modern medical services in this area. In this episode, Bhuj is getting a modern, super-specialty hospital today.”
Explaining the meaning of ‘better health facilities’ PM Modi said in his speech, “Better healthcare facilities are not just limited to the treatment of the disease, they encourage social justice. When a poor man has access to the cheap and best treatment, his trust in the system is strengthened.”
PM Modi further said, “If the poor get rid of the worry of the cost of treatment, then he is sure to work hard to get out of poverty. This thought has been the motivation for all the schemes in the health sector that have been implemented in recent years. The Ayushman Bharat Yojana and The Jan Aushadhi Yojana are helping the poor and middle-class families who would have otherwise spent lakhs of crores in medical expenses.
The KK Patel Supr Speciality Hospital inaugurated by PM Modi is built by Shri Kutchi Leva Patel Samaj of Bhuj. The 200 bedded super specialty hospital provides services like Interventional Cardiology, Cardiothoracic Surgery, Radiation Oncology, Medical Oncology, Surgical Oncology, Nephrology, Urology, Nuclear Medicine, Neuro Surgery, Joint Replacement, and other supportive services like laboratory, radiology, etc.
It is notable that, the number of private medical colleges and government medical colleges in India has increased at a great pace in the last few years. According to a report by World Education Services, the number of private medical colleges in India is increased from 209 in 2014 to 260 in 2019. The report published at www.went.wes.org says that the number of government medical colleges in India increased from 176 in 2014 to 272 in 2019.
Private medical colleges often have very high fees. The medical education thus becomes affordable to only the students from certain economic classes. Modi government has emphasized establishing more government medical colleges in order to assure affordable medical education for the bright students even those from lower-income groups of the societies. The government medical colleges and hospitals also assure treatment of the poor patients at affordable prices.