'Focus on healthcare to push up HDI'

Principal Secretary to Medical Education department M Lakshminarayana has said that the country needs to shift its focus on healthcare in order to improve the human development index (HDI).

Speaking at the golden jubilee celebrations of Government Dental College and Research Institute in the City on Saturday, Lakshminarayana said, maternal mortality rates have gone
down in south India  and those in northern parts of the country have to catch up.

Medical colleges
He said that medical colleges will be set up at Madikeri, Karwar and Chamarajnagar and ESIC colleges would come up at Bengaluru and Kalaburagi. Drawing a comparison with other countries, Lakshminarayana said that in Sri Lanka, at least 95 per cent of the population benefits from government health facilities. “Inadequate facility at primary health centre is the most common complaint here. The government has been taking steps to improve infrastructure at state-run health centres,” he said.