GUWAHATI, June 18 - Leader of Opposition in the Assam Legislative Assembly Debabrata Saikia has welcomed the State government�s move to tie up with the Tata Trusts to establish 19 cancer hospitals in Assam, which would be linked with the National Cancer Grid.
He, however, cautioned against possible neglect of the government-funded health sector in the State.
Saikia said that according to 2014 data of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), the average hospitalisation cost per person in the rural areas of Assam is the lowest in India at Rs 6,996 and 89.2 per cent of rural inhabitants go to government hospitals.
�Conversely, the average hospitalisation cost per person in the urban areas of Assam is the highest in India at Rs 47,064. One of the main reasons for the high hospitalisation expenditure in urban areas is that 48.5 per cent of patients go to private hospitals. Such patients include people from rural areas, who are forced to go to private hospitals due to reasons like shortage of specialists and other doctors and defective or defunct medical equipments available in government hospitals. An unbridled thrust on joint public-private sector healthcare in such a scenario is likely to put an enormous financial burden on the common people in future,� Saikia said.
The leader of Opposition in the Assembly said that since infant and maternal mortality is very high in Assam along with prevalence of diseases like anaemia, encephalitis, diarrhoea, hypertension and diabetes, the government should also concentrate on strengthening the low-cost public healthcare system at the grassroots level.
