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Dr T P Lahane is a renowned eye surgeon in Mumbai, recognised for his mastery of sophisticated techniques in eye surgery and for his pioneering community work in ophthalmology in rural and tribal areas of Maharashtra. He has performed more than 1,41,000 cataract surgeries and successfully treated over 10 lakh patients so far.
At present, he is the Dean of Sir JJ Group of Hospitals and Grant Medical College in Mumbai. And with the attitude of a common man, he has both eyes and ears to the ground. Speaking to Mrityunjay Bose of Deccan Herald, he said the mission should be to create a healthy India. Excerpts:
The draft National Health Policy 2015 is out. What are your initial reactions and
suggestions?
I must say it is very comprehensive. It has taken into consideration several issues. I have gone through the NHP draft. It focuses extensively on prevention and that is very good. It has covered a wide range of areas right from resources, technology, regulatory framework etc. One must remember that health status is linked to economic growth.
What should be the focus of a health policy?
The focus should be creation of a healthy India. We have seen what kind of problems people are facing, we have our own research base, we have a great intellectual capital.
We have state-of-the-art hospitals. What we need is to translate it into a healthy India. We have to take into account that a large number of people do not have access to proper healthcare in several places. We have to set targets and move on.
What is the top priority that that the government should give to realise a healthy India?
The first is to increase the health budget and the expenditure. It has to be enhanced significantly. We have to ensure that the poorest of the poor gets access to health services. This is also to ensure the affordability of healthcare. We have to achieve the highest possible level of good health and well-being, through preventive and promotive measures. Campaign and awareness on various health issues are a must.
The draft policy focuses on prevention. Could you throw some light on this.Today, we have become the centre point of lifestyle diseases. We have become the hub of diabetes, which causes several other health problems. There are lifestyle related issues like cardiac problems.
We do not just need cure, but we need solutions to overcome these problems. Some of the problems are alarming. We have to tackle these issues with prevention, which is the best cure. If we know the dos and don’ts, we would be able to fight several alarming health problems. We know that there is an increase in consumption of tobacco and alcohol, we do not focus on cleanliness etc. We have to incorporate all these in the health policy.
The policy also talks about road accident. Your comments on this?
This is a very important thing in the policy. Ten lakh people die of road accidents in India every year. A majority of those killed are youth. We need to focus on the golden hour and rush people to trauma care centres. In Maharashtra, we have done that. We have ensured that after a certain distance in highways there are ambulances.
What are your comments on modern lifestyle?
A lot of things have been written on this issue. As far as health is concerned, what is more important is to know where we stand now. The urban-rural divide in health services needs to be bridged. As far as diet is concerned, healthy or balanced diet is an important issue. This has been covered in the policy. Many of the diseases are linked to diet. Proper diet and exercises can sort out a majority of the problems.
Do you think that the draft policy, when it comes up for implementation, would be able the bridge the problems that the health sector in India is facing.
That is the core aim of the draft. The policy addresses the urgent need to improve the performance of health systems. It is being formulated in the last year of the Millennium Declaration and its Goals in the global context of all nations being committed to moving towards universal health coverage. The NHP of 1983 and of 2002 have served us well in guiding the approach for the health sector in the five year plans and for different schemes. But new challenges have emerged which has to be addressed.
The healthcare industry is expanding and has undergone lot of changes in the last couple of decades. The policy would be successful if we are able to involve an educated and informed community in healthcare.