SRINAGAR: Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Wednesday called for expanding advanced healthcare facilities to smaller districts and remote areas, saying the country must narrow the gap between the capabilities of modern medicine and the treatment actually available to people.
Addressing the inaugural session of the National Summit on Quaternary Healthcare: A National Strategy for Advanced Care at the Sher-i-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC) in Srinagar, Sinha said the challenge of providing specialised healthcare extended beyond Jammu and Kashmir and required a broader national approach.
Sinha recalled visiting a health centre near Akhnoor during the administration’s ‘Back to Village’ programme amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He said doctors there had highlighted difficulties faced by families seeking diagnosis and treatment for children with complex illnesses.
According to Sinha, the absence of equipment and specialised facilities at peripheral health centres often left doctors unable to diagnose such conditions, forcing families from remote areas to travel to Jammu, Chandigarh or Delhi for treatment.
“The patience of the mother and the patience of the father is not just in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said, stressing that the issue required attention across the country.
The Lieutenant Governor said India had made significant progress in healthcare over the past 10–12 years, citing the expansion of health insurance coverage, vaccination programmes, medical education and healthcare infrastructure.
He said the country had also added new AIIMS institutions, medical colleges and MBBS seats, including in Jammu and Kashmir. However, he maintained that a considerable gap remained between what modern medicine could offer and what patients could access.
“There is a gap and there is a distance,” Sinha said, adding that the country was now approaching healthcare development on a larger scale.
He said advanced healthcare should be viewed as part of the broader vision of a Viksit Bharat, with greater focus on specialised treatment, research and innovation.
Referring to AIIMS Delhi, PGI Chandigarh and SKIMS Srinagar, Sinha said such institutions demonstrated India’s specialised healthcare capabilities but added that building a comprehensive healthcare ecosystem would require sustained efforts.
He urged hospitals to develop as centres of research and innovation in addition to providing clinical treatment.
“We should not only make hospitals. We should also make them centres of research initiatives,” he said, emphasising that clinical care and research should progress together.
Sinha also said quaternary care centres should have access to every facility made possible by advances in science.
“Every possibility that science allows should be available in the quaternary care centre,” he said.
On healthcare investment, he said governments were making provisions through annual budgets to strengthen and modernise the sector. He also said economic growth was creating greater opportunities for healthcare and noted the increasing availability of doctors and specialists at different levels of care.
Sinha suggested that institutions such as NITI Aayog could contribute to developing strategies for strengthening advanced healthcare and integrating specialised services with existing systems.
He further called for wider use of telemedicine to link healthcare facilities across Jammu and Kashmir with specialised expertise in remote areas.
“Advanced care without advanced doctors is not possible,” he said.
Calling for greater cooperation among Himalayan states, Sinha proposed joint planning for biomedical research and identifying areas where states could collaborate on region-specific healthcare challenges.
