Arora attends session moderated by Dr Gurpreet Wander at 4th IAPSM Young Leaders' National Conclave at DMCH

Ludhiana, November 4, 2023: Sanjeev Arora, MP (Rajya Sabha) has said both the state and the central governments have done a lot for bringing improvement in national health, community medicine and health insurance and still, there is a lot of scope in this field for ensuring better and affordable health facilities to everyone in this country. He stressed upon the need of cent percent participation of all the stakeholders for bringing overall changes in the healthcare sector.

Arora was addressing students and faculty during `Meet the Parliamentarian’ session of the two-day 4th IAPSM Young Leaders' National Conclave/ Conference organised by Department of Community Medicine, DMCH, at Auditorium of College Campus of DMCH, Ludhiana on Saturday. The theme of the conference was “Community Medicine Physician: Expectations, Reality and Progression”. This 1-hour-long session was Coordinated by Dr Anurag Chaudhary, Dr AM Kadri was panelist and moderated by Dr GS Wander. The Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine (IAPSM), is a National level Professional body in the field of Community Medicine/Public health, which was founded in 1974. 

Dr GS Wander, Vice Principal of DMCH, Ludhiana introduced Arora to the audience and informed that Arora is not only an active Member of Parliamentary Committee on Health and Family Welfare but also Vice President of DMCH Managing Society. He narrated some of his achievements as a parliamentarian and stated that Arora has done a lot in the field of health sector specially creating mass awareness against breast cancer and running an NGO to financially help cancer patients. 

Arora took many questions from the audience and gave answers to all these questions one after another. The questions put to him were related to community medicine, health insurance, allocation of government funds for healthcare sector, CSR scheme for health sector, TB eradication programme, rising menace of kidney cases, infrastructure of health institutions and gender equality.  

Replying to the questions, Arora laid stress on allocating more funds for the healthcare sector. He also stated that there is a dire need to make healthcare affordable for everyone. He said the government has a target to fully eliminate TB from the country, adding that he had even discussed this issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his recent meeting. But, he pointed out that cent percent elimination of TB could not be possible till people are educated to complete their course of treatment. 

Arora made shocking revelation that 10 percent population across the country is suffering from kidney ailments. He, therefore, said there is dire need of community medicine to deal with such a situation. He also laid stress on improving government-run health institutions for ensuring affordable health care with better, improved and hygienic facilities. He also expressed his views on out of pocket expenses on healthcare and stated that the country is lacking compared to other nations in this field. He even assured to take up a couple of issues at all appropriate platforms to get these issues resolved.

At the end, he was presented a memento by Dr Anurag Chaudhry and Dr Gurpreet Singh Wander Chairman of Baba Farid University.