Work hard to reclaim old glory, Harsh Vardhan urges medical fraternity

Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Harsh Vardhan today urged the medical fraternity to work hard and stand united to reclaim the ancient medical glory of India.

"When you start going deep into the medical history of the country we feel proud. The country once had comprehensive knowledge on all aspects of health science. It was translated in many foreign languages that time"

Vardhan said here while speaking at an interactive session organised by BJP Medical Cell Kerala.

"We should sit together and frame a strategy to revive everything back", he said.

Mentioning about the new National Ayush Mission, set up by the Centre recently to promote diverse fields of health care systems, he said all systems of medicines like Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha, Homoeopathy and so on should be collaborated for developing a holistic health care approach.

"The medical profession in the country is facing lots of challenges. Seventy per cent of girls and 83-87 per cent of pregnant women are still anaemic. We are still losing children due to malnutrition, diarrhoea and pneumonia. Our 30-year-old Universal Immunisation Programme is a failure. Thirty per cent of children in the country do not receive free vaccines. We lose large number of children due to vaccine-preventable diseases," he said.

The minister said the BJP-led government at the Centre has lot of hope on the medical profession.

"We have already started working on a number of issues. We intend to eradicate filarial and measles, bring tuberculosis under control and want no one to die due to vaccine-preventable diseases," he said.