KAZIRANGA, Oct 30 - Information Technology is now a vital key for success in the current health scenario across the country. There is a need for maximum utilisation of information technology to meet the health-related services in the country. IT applications in the form of Telemedicine, Tele-treatment, Tele-Opthalmology etc., needs to be adopted to bring about a massive improvement in the health sector of India. This was the view expressed by Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, JP Nadda while addressing a National Summit on �Good and Replicable Practices and Innovation in Public Health Care Systems, 2018� at Borgos Resort in Kaziranga. About 207 delegates coming from different places of India attended the summit.
Nadda said that the present Union Government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is giving a lot of emphasis on improving health-related issues of the country and of the North East specially.
Telemedicine is the use of electronic communication and information technology to provide clinical services when patients are at different locations.
Nadda said, �two mantras as envisaged by Prime Minister Modi are important to follow in letter and spirit. First one is Perform, Reform and Transform which means that there has to be a consciousness on the part of everyone to come forward and adopt new technology to improve the health scenario of the country and reduce the percentage of mortality due to any disease or ailments. Secondly, there must be good development of skill and scale as these two factors are vital and related to quality and quantity improvement.�
He said that there was a need of sharing of vital information and ideas among the different stakeholders of the health sector to come up with better and good practices.
Nadda said that there is a need to understand the strengths and weaknesses to bridge the gap if any to bring about improvement in the health sector. The performance must be brought to 20% from 10%, said Nadda.
Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal thanked Nadda and his whole team from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India for doing the needful for improving the health issues of Assam. He also thanked them for organising such a high-level summit at Kaziranga.
Assam Health and Family Welfare Minister, Dr Himanta Biswa Sharma while addressing the gathering attended by Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare AK Choubey, Ministers Atul Bora, Keshab Mahanta and Pijush Hazarika, said that this summit will definitely bring about good improvement in the health care systems in the country as well as Assam. He said that at present, the mortality rate had been reduced to 236 from 482 and 19 new cancer hospitals on the PPP model with Tata Trust will be opened in the State to meet the treatment requirements of cancer patients of Assam. Schemes like Atal Amrit Abhiyan have benefited the needy. He said that for temporary workers of tea gardens of Assam, a stipend of Rs 1,200 has been provided to pregnant women (workers who do not get any maternity benefit from tea garden management). Till now 3,000 children have been treated for cleft palate free of cost. Similarly, 6000 children suffering from heart ailments had been operated free of cost, he added.
