Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 24 said holistic health care has been a priority in the country for the past eight years and more work has been done in this field than the last seven decades.
Mr. Modi said this after inaugurating 300-bed Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital and Research Centre at Mohali’s Mullanpur. The facility has been built at a cost of over ₹660 crore by Tata Memorial Centre, an aided institute under the Union Department of Atomic Energy.
Addressing the gathering, Mr. Modi stressed that prevention is better than cure and good health care does not mean building four walls only. In the past eight years, holistic health care has been a priority, the Prime Minister said.
More work has been done in health care in seven or eight years than over 70 years, he claimed.
Reaching out to cancer patients and their families, Mr. Modi said “We don’t need to be scared of cancer but we have to fight it. I know many people who have defeated cancer.”
The Prime Minister said over 1.50 lakh health and wellness centres are being set up in the country, of which 1.25 lakh have already started functioning.
In Chandigarh, people from remote areas of Himachal Pradesh come to the PGIMER for treatment, he said.
In Himachal Pradesh’s Bilaspur, an AIIMS has been built and over here a big facility for cancer treatment is available now, he said. Mr. Modi said for a long time, there has been an aspiration in the country for a health care system, which cares for the poor, saves them from illness and provide affordable treatment.
Referring to the pledge to make India a developed nation in 25 years, Mr. Modi said for this the health care system also needs to be developed.
When people get modern hospitals and facilities, they will become more healthy, he said.
The country has got a modern hospital today and in this Tata Memorial Centre has played a key role, he said, adding that the Centre is helping save lives of people.
Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital and Research Centre is a 300-bed facility equipped with facilities such as MRI, mammography, digital radiography and brachytherapy to treat all types of cancer using available treatment modalities like surgery, chemotherapy, immunotherapy and bone marrow transplant.
The hospital will act as a tertiary care centre to patients not only from Punjab but also from Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann was also present when Mr. Modi inaugurated the hospital in Mullanpur on the outskirts of Chandigarh.
Punjab Governor B.L. Purohit, Union Minister Jitendra Singh, Congress MP from Anandpur Sahib Manish Tewari were among others present on the occasion.
Earlier in the day, the PM inaugurated a state-of-the-art 2,600-bed Amrita Hospital in Haryana’s Faridabad.
