Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Saturday in Srinagar that the government’s top goal was to help people.
In a speech at a workshop on communication in healthcare put on by the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS), the Union Minister of State (IC) Science and Technology, MoS PMO, Personnel Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space said that putting a human touch on things was a top priority for the government.
Singh said that after every case was handled through the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS), a human touch was added to give it a human angle.
He was happy that this training would be held in Srinagar and talked about the long history of healthcare in J&K.
The union minister said that the area had always been thought of as the centre of medical education and that it was very far ahead of the rest of the world in this field even when problems started happening in the 1990s.
“A number of successful meetings have led to this positive view, and the fact that more and more things are happening in Kashmir is proof of that,” he said.
Singh talked about how well the G20 meeting in Srinagar went and how it was thought to be one of the best meetings held in the whole country because it had the most guests.
“All the official and unofficial events made G20 a success, and a lot of media were there,” he said. “The recent two-day conference on administrative reforms was also well-attended, which shows that we are making progress.”
Singh emphasised how important good communication is in the nursing field.
He stressed that health care was not just a science, but also an art. This art includes not only diagnosing and treating illnesses, but also speaking with patients and their families in a sensitive and caring way.
The union minister told the crowd that it took a little longer to implement the Diplomate of National Board (DNB) plan in Kashmir, but that “we are marching ahead at a smooth pace even though there are so many changes going on.”
“We have seen a shift from healthcare that is based on communication to healthcare that is not based on communication,” Singh said. “The technological revolution has changed the way medical care is given to patients. Healthcare may have gotten better and faster, but people no longer talk to each other as much.
He said that because India is a diverse country, these no- or low-cost ways to communicate were also a good thing.
“Telemedicine is also changing things in remote areas,” the union minister said, using a remote part of the Kathua district as an example.
He emphasised the need to find the best balance in a time when communication costs money and has become a profitable business.
“We were always taught to communicate well with patients. This was not only for the benefit of the patients, but also for our own growth, and this should always be kept in mind,” Singh said.
He praised the work that the J&K government and NBEMS were doing to improve health care in the area by making a lot more PG spots and classes available and letting people get high-quality care within J&K.
Singh said that good communication in healthcare was an important part of the job that set great care apart from the rest.
Earlier, Bhupendra Kumar, who is the Secretary of the Department of Health and Medical Education, thanked the NBEMS for putting on the workshop.
He said that NBEMS had changed the way people in J&K thought about public health services.
“We were able to fill the gaps and holes after learning from states like Tamil Nadu and getting help from the Union Ministry of Health,” Kumar said. “The results have been amazing on the ground: more people have access to health care, waiting times for surgeries are shorter, patient satisfaction is higher in remote areas, and the number of people who need to be referred has gone down.”
Healthcare workers, teachers, and doctors-in-training from all over the country came to Srinagar for NBEMS’s transformative class on communication in healthcare.
The event was a big step in showing how important good dialogue is for providing good treatment.
