Pics by Rons Bantwal

Mumbai, Jul 5: “Good health parameters of a society are an absolute necessity for the economic progress of a nation,” said President Pratibha Patil at the inauguration of the SevenHills Hospital, in Andheri on Sunday.

“We are yet to reach our goal of health for all. Access to and affordability of healthcare, especially for the underprivileged and marginalised sections of society, in particular women and children, remain under-accomplished tasks,” she added.

She urged medical institutions to reach out to the rural areas by holding medical camps with mobile medical units.

The SevenHills Hospital, equipped with 1,500 beds, has reserved 20 per cent of its beds for BMC patients and earmarked a separate floor to house in-patient wards and out patient departments for the purpose.

Anybody who holds a yellow or red ration card and below poverty line (BPL) card can avail of the hospital’s services after being declared eligible by BMC’s officer on special duty in the hospital, according to Dr Jitendra Das Maganti, chairman and managing director of the hospital.

“We are also a paperless facility with an electronic medical record (EMR) system,” he added.

The President laid special emphasis on the use of tele-medicine (technology in medicine) to combat the increase in lifestyle diseases.

Talking about the threat perception by 'lifestyle diseases', Patil said as per the World Health Organisation, there would be 80 million diabetes patients in the country by 2030, while as per the Cardiological Society of India, there would be a 100 million heart cardiac patients — 60 per cent of the total cardiac patients in the world — in India by 2020.

“WHO has cautioned that India would be diabetes capital of the world,” she added.

The function was attended by Maharashtra Governor K Sankaranarayanan, Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal and Mayor Shraddha Jadhav.