New Delhi: Public health professionals believe India’s G20 Presidency for the year 2023 is a great opportunity for the country to emerge as a healthcare leader and also propagate for traditional wellness practises at the international level. The professionals from across the country came together on Friday at the strategic roundtable, organised by the health think tank IHW Council, and discussed about the need of mitigating the aftermaths of COVID-19 pandemic by building sustainable and resilient health infrastructures and to leverage on opportunities of using G20 chair to initiate discussions on holistic health at the global level.
Speaking on the occasion, former Union health secretary Lov Verma noted that the G20 Presidency should be utilised to showcase India’s pathbreaking health achievements, specifically on the use of technology during the pandemic.
The roundtable also witnessed deliberations on Global South Asia emerging as healthcare leaders and India providing the much-needed impetus for accelerating the process of thought leadership in healthcare.
Dr Sanjiv Kumar, member, Governing Board, National Institute of Health remarked,
The whole earth is one family as seen during the pandemic and this should be the message propagated in India’s presidency in 2023.
He further emphasised that primary healthcare is the cornerstone of healthy nations and the platform of G20 should be used to bring focus on it.
The roundtable titled “Global Health Leadership Opportunities for India During G20” was attended by Dr Chandrakant Pandav, former professor and HoD of Centre for Community Medicines, AIIMS; Dr Ajay Khera, Country Representative, Engender Health; Dr Suresh Kumar, Director, Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital; and Dr Nimesh Desai, senior psychiatrist and former director, Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, among others.
Dr K Madan Gopal, senior consultant, Health, NITI Aayog said,
G20 is an opportunity to raise awareness on social determinants of health and we need to harness health infrastructures and regulations to ensure healthier populations.
The speakers also pointed out that the theme of 2023 presidency “One Earth, One Family, One Future” should be used to strive for health equity while ensuring good health for the most vulnerable nations and population.
While taking part in the discussion, Kamal Narayan, CEO, IHW Council observed that India can give a collective call towards a new paradigm of “inclusive, accessible and comprehensive” health systems for accelerating and amplifying the discourse around global health, while leaving no one behind, in its presidency year.
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NDTV – Dettol have been working towards a clean and healthy India since 2014 via the Banega Swachh India initiative, which is helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan. The campaign aims to highlight the inter-dependency of humans and the environment, and of humans on one another with the focus on One Health, One Planet, One Future – Leaving No One Behind. It stresses on the need to take care of, and consider, everyone’s health in India – especially vulnerable communities – the LGBTQ population, indigenous people, India’s different tribes, ethnic and linguistic minorities, people with disabilities, migrants, geographically remote populations, gender and sexual minorities. In wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the need for WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) is reaffirmed as handwashing is one of the ways to prevent Coronavirus infection and other diseases. The campaign will continue to raise awareness on the same along with focussing on the importance of nutrition and healthcare for women and children, fight malnutrition, mental wellbeing, self care, science and health, adolescent health & gender awareness. Along with the health of people, the campaign has realised the need to also take care of the health of the eco-system. Our environment is fragile due to human activity, which is not only over-exploiting available resources, but also generating immense pollution as a result of using and extracting those resources. The imbalance has also led to immense biodiversity loss that has caused one of the biggest threats to human survival – climate change. It has now been described as a “code red for humanity.” The campaign will continue to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and sanitation workers and menstrual hygiene. Banega Swasth India will also be taking forward the dream of Swasth Bharat, the campaign feels that only a Swachh or clean India where toilets are used and open defecation free (ODF) status achieved as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, can eradicate diseases like diahorrea and the country can become a Swasth or healthy India.
