Given the 1.2 billion population of India, the money spent on healthcare is not sufficient, said Sanjay Lalbhai, chancellor of Ahmedabad University in Ahmedabad on Tuesday.
He was speaking at a programme organised to launch the School for Public Health at the University. The school, one of its kind, aims to improve health and environment locally, nationally and globally. Under the leadership of dean Kaumudi Joshipura, doctor of science in epidemiology from Harvard University, the school will also train leaders who can develop holistic solutions to interdisciplinary problems pertinent to the 21st Century. It will also educate and inspire individuals, communities and organisations.
Lalbhai, who also heads Arvind Limited, said though the government has been doing well in the last few years, there is a long way to go when the outlay in healthcare is compared with what other countries spend.
However, he said it is not fair to push all the problems to the government and urged the corporates to come forward.
The launch function was an insight of sorts into the kind of research, teachings and collaborations the School of Public Health intends to take up in the course of time.
The panel discussion on Planetary and Human Health saw Dileep Mavalankar, director of the Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar, touching upon the issue of climate change, soil characteristics affecting health.
Minal Pathak, associate professor of Global Centre for Environment and Energy at the AU, said as per Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report the future does not look great. Understanding and forecasting will help mitigate climate change and its impact on human health, said Pathak, who has been part of panels drafting many IPCC reports.
Founding CEO of Ayushman Bharat and chairperson of Partnerships for Impact (P4i) Indu Bhushan said with the heat maps they could zero in on places where there were a large number of cancer cases or for that matter find out influenza-like illnesses. The heat maps, he said, were helpful to them to get to the root of the problem resulting in these diseases/illnesses.
He also said during Covid-19, perhaps more people died because of other illnesses as the medical fraternity was focused on the pandemic. Bhushan was explaining how cyclones or other calamities can disturb the healthcare system.
Mavalankar said while India’s immunisation system has been the best in the world and the family planning and polio eradication have also been good, unfortunately, environmental health has been a blind spot. There is no environmental epidemiologist and now there is the problem of climate change, he added.
There were suggestions that like in the Western countries, the mortality data be made available in the country so that reasons of deaths can be looked into and the problems can be addressed.
Subroto Bagchi, co-founder of Mindtree and chairman of Odisha Skill Development Authority, spoke about how during Covid-19 in Odisha they explained to the people about the virus and drove home the point of getting isolated. Bagchi said they made it simple in a manner the general public can understand and gave an example of Lord Jagannath having a bath in public (a ritual in Odisha), then catching fever and the doors for darshan remaining closed for a few days. The food offerings to the Almighty are also reduced during those days.
He also an interesting thing that in Odisha they asked people not to isolate a particular community. Bagchi said after the Tablighi Jamaat programme in New Delhi everybody was blaming the community as if it was the only one spreading Covid-19. He said they asked people not to isolate the community as it will lead to communal disharmony.
A chair of professorship in Public Health has been introduced in the name of Bagchi and his wife Susmita, writer and chairperson of MoSchool, Odisha.
Professor Pankaj Chandra, vice chancellor of AU, dwelt upon the fact to address complex challenges. He also spoke about how the AU collaborated with Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation during Covid-19 on the communication strategy.
