Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that a nation like India has to have proper medical infrastructure and medical education infrastructure and work is underway to ensure a medical college or post-graduate medical institute in every district of the country.

Inaugurating the Silver Jubilee celebrations of Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Karnataka through video conferencing, Mr Modi said, during the last six years, Government has given top-most priority to reforms in health and medical education. He said, the country has seen rapid progress in setting up 22 more All India Institute of Medical Sciences, AIIMS. He said, over the last five years, over 30 thousand seats in MBBS and 15 thousand seats in post-graduation has been added.

The Prime Minister said, Ayushman Bharat- the world’s largest healthcare scheme belongs to India and in less than two years, one crore people have benefitted from the scheme. He said, women and those staying in villages are among the major beneficiaries of this scheme. He also stressed on advances in tele-medicine, Make in India in health sector and IT related tools for healthier societies. Mr Modi said, at the root of India’s brave fight against COVID-19 is the hard work of the medical community and the CORONA warriors. He said, in fact, doctors and medical workers are like soldiers, but without the soldiers’ uniform. The Prime Minister said, the virus may be an invisible enemy, but our warriors, medical workers are invincible.

He said, in the battle of Invisible Vs Invincible, our medical workers are sure to win. Mr Modi said, at such a time, the world is looking up to the doctors, nurses, medical staff and scientific community with hope and gratitude. He said, the world seeks both care and cure from them. The Prime Minister said, violence, abuse and rude behaviour against front-line workers is not acceptable.

Prime minister Narendra Modi called upon health care professionals and academicians to focus on preventive and affordable health care, improvement in medical education infrastructure and mission mode implementation of health programs.

He said, the world is facing biggest crisis after the second world war and hard work of medical community and corona warriors is appreciable. He underscored the need to invent a new model to popularize tele-medicine. He also stressed a need to encourage domestic health care sector through make in India program. He informed more than forty thousand health centres across the country are working on preventing lifestyle diseases and twelve crore health conscious people have downloaded Aarogya Setu mobile app in the country.

Speaking about infrastructure created to tackle Covid-19 pandemic, he said that the country has produced one crore PPE kits for front line warriors. After the outbreak of the pandemic, 1 crore 20 lac masks, he said, have been supplied to the states. He expressed confidence that our front line warriors will win this battle against Corona virus and appreciated the efforts of Karnataka state government in containing the pandemic.