Namaste!
Mr. President,
World welfare begins with the public welfare and health is a very important unit of this. And hence this subject is a very big priority for India.
We are working on this with Holistic Approach through four pillars. The first pillar is Preventive Health. We have laid special emphasis on Yoga, Ayurveda and fitness. We are building more than 1.25 lakh wellness centers.
This is helping to control lifestyle diseases like diabetes, blood pressure, depression etc.
The ever increasing craze of e-cigarette is a matter of great concern. India has banned e-cigarette to save the younger generation from this serious threat.
Our Clean Indian Mission has contributed to saving millions of lives.
We also have special emphasis on immunization. With the addition of new vaccines, we have also improved access to far-flung areas.
The second pillar is Affordable Healthcare. We have implemented the world's largest health assurance scheme Ayushman Bharat. Under this, 500 million poor are being provided free treatment up to 500 thousand rupees per year. And in the last one year only 4.5
million people have been benefited from it.
We have started more than five thousand special pharmacy stores where more than 800 essential medicines are being made available at affordable prices.
The cost of heart stent has been reduced by 80 percent and the cost of knee-implant by 50 to 70 percent.
Millions of people suffering from kidney problems are availing free dialysis facility in India.
The third pillar is to improve the Supply Side and for this we have taken many historic steps for quality medical education in India, and for medical infrastructure. We have made radical reforms for the second sector.
And the fourth pillar is Mission Mode Intervention. If mothers and children are healthy, then it can create the foundation to make the whole society healthy and hence we have taken initiatives like National Nutrition Campaign on mission mode.
Sustainable Development Goals aims to eliminate TB by 2030. In India, we intend to achieve this in mission mode by 2025 and I am confident that we will achieve this goal as well.
We have also started a campaign against the diseases caused due to air pollution and the ones that are transferred from animals to humans.
Excellencies,
Health is not just about getting rid of disease, healthy life is also the right of everyone. It is our government's responsibility to make every effort for the same.
And India's efforts are not confined to the boundaries of India only. We have collaborated and will continue to increase access to affordable healthcare through tele-medicine in many countries, especially to the countries in Africa.
Our experience and our capabilities are available to all the developing countries.
Excellencies,
I would end my talk with the feelings of Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah, Sarve Santu Niramaya Which means, Wishing all happiness and wishing all a disease free life.
Thanks a lot!
Disclaimer: PM's speech was delivered in Hindi. This is an approximate translation of the speech.