TED NewsDesk, Bengaluru: On Tuesday, the State Health and Medical Education Minister, K Sudhakar was present at the inauguration of the new infrastructure of Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Medical Science and Research Centre in Bengaluru. Here he talked about the need for more doctors and medical colleges in the state, especially in the light of Coronavirus pandemic, a lack in medical facilities has been highlighted quite urgently.
He said that such a goal can very easily be achieved via Public-Private Partnership (PPP) since each establishing a medical college requires at least 600-700 crores and such an expense will put a huge burden on the state. But if the PPP model is used for such purposes, then the whole burden will not fall on the state government. He said, “If it is built in the PPP model, it reduces the burden on state exchequer and also helps provide affordable medical education and treatment to the needy. This model is being adopted in Gujarat and the same will be implemented here as well.”
He further clarified that since the WHO mandates there to be a maximum of 1000 citizens per doctor, but in reality, there are 10-12 thousand citizens per doctor says a lot about the dire need of medical infrastructure and human resources.
Sudhakar added that their vision follows the vision of the Modi government in the Centre, who has already established more than 157 medical colleges across the country in the last 6 years. Furthermore, the Central government has also planned to establish 22 new AIIMS, for each of the remaining states.
He showed enthusiasm at the prospect of bringing an AIIMS to Karnataka, he said, “We are committed to bringing one AIIMS in our state too. The process of obtaining permission is already in progress and soon there will be an AIIMS functional in the state.”
Keeping in mind these new changes and the need of the hour, Sudhakar said that very soon there will be introduced new health and medical education policy in Karnataka.