Rodrigues calls upon doctors to serve rural poor with compassion

Chandigarh, Jan 25 (UNI) Punjab Governor and Chandigarh Union territory Administrator General (Retd.) S F Rodrigues called upon doctors to serve the rural poor and disadvantaged groups with compassion and commitment.

He was inaugurating the 36th National Conference of Indian Association of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists at PGI Auditorium, here last night.

General Rodrigues said that majority of population, who lived in villages, did not have access to basic quality healthcare.

Thirty per cent of our children, who are the hope of our future, are suffering from various ailments with no support system available to treat them, he added.

He emphasized there was a need for a performance audit of policies and programmes to restructure the future plans for the benefit of needy sections of society.

General Rodrigues said that a world-class efficient healthcare network was being develped in Chandigarh for providing comprehensive medical services to people of the whole region.

"We are in the process of synchronizing the healthcare services by pooling existing resources and integrating the medical network available in PGIMER, General Hospital and Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh, for ensuring access to quality healthcare in the region", he said.

The objective behind this endeavour is to entrust primary and secondary healthcare to the General Hospital and Government Medical College Hospital while the PGI will handle tertiary care and research work.

He said that Chandigarh Hospitals cater to the medical needs of the 60 million population of the region comprising Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir and Western Part of Uttar Pradesh.

"We are also setting up a Medicity in Chandigarh equipped with super-specialty services with special emphasis on nursing training programmes to empower our girls to provide free treatment to the poor in need", he said. There is also a plan of setting up a trauma management hospital.

Appreciating the theme of the Conference-'Paediatric Dermatology', General Rodrigues said that children need special attention of medical fraternity. "We have started work on two ambitious projects in Chandigarh- one for mentally retarded children and other for crippled children", he added. He asked the delegates to extend their advice for the success of these ventures of great societal concern.

UNI VKJ VN1838