SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Wednesday called for establishing a quaternary healthcare corridor in the Union Territory, integrating AI-enabled diagnostics and launching a biomedical research mission to ensure advanced medical care is accessible to all.
Addressing the Quaternary Healthcare & Research Summit in Srinagar, Sinha said Jammu and Kashmir and the country must now move beyond tertiary care and expand quaternary-level treatment and research.
He said the gap between healthcare available at district hospitals and the advanced treatment required by patients remained a major challenge and stressed the need to bridge it.
Sinha highlighted the expansion of healthcare infrastructure in the country, including 23 AIIMS and 2,045 medical colleges. In Jammu and Kashmir, he said, the healthcare network includes two AIIMS, 10 medical colleges, two State Cancer Institutes, a Bone and Joint Hospital, a Paediatric Hospital, 52 nursing colleges, 23 paramedical colleges and five pharmacy colleges.
“Quaternary care should not be a privilege reserved for the economically rich section of society. It must become a right of citizenship and a guarantee of the nation,” Sinha said.
He said advanced healthcare should no longer remain concentrated in metropolitan cities and called for greater cooperation among government and private hospitals, research centres and other stakeholders.
The LG urged hospitals to evolve into research institutions capable of providing organ transplantation, robotic and precision surgery, advanced genomics, cellular therapies and AI-supported diagnostics.
He also called upon hospitals to make annual budgetary provisions for specialised infrastructure and technologies such as modern operation theatres, robotic surgery, gene therapy, proton-beam therapy and AI-based diagnostics.
Sinha proposed developing a healthcare corridor linking district hospitals and tertiary centres with quaternary-care institutions to facilitate faster diagnostics, imaging and specialist consultations. He also called for integrating telemedicine and AI-enabled diagnostic tools into mainstream healthcare.
“Advanced care is impossible without advanced specialists,” he said, calling for expanded fellowship and training opportunities in organ transplantation, oncology, genomics and critical care.
The LG also proposed a mission bringing together Himalayan states, universities, hospitals, private institutions and innovators to advance biomedical research and address funding challenges.
“We must develop new inventions ourselves instead of importing innovation from abroad,” he said.
Sinha said hospitals should be treated as strategic national assets on the lines of highways and ports, with equal focus on their preservation and development.
He called for a quaternary-care framework that would ensure equal access to advanced treatment for people irrespective of their economic background.
On the occasion, Sinha released the summit souvenir and several publications.
NITI Aayog Member Dr M Srinivas, Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo, National Academy of Medical Sciences president Dr Digambar Behera, Dr Kameshwar Prasad, Commissioner Secretary, Health and Medical Education Department, M Raju, SKIMS Director Prof M Ashraf Ganie, besides heads of institutions, researchers, scientists and senior officials, attended the summit.
