Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, June 20: Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said here today that in the changing scenario of contemporary India, Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus is now affecting, both the young and the elderly.
Speaking as chief guest at a seminar organised by Delhi Medical Association, Dr Jitendra Singh said, on the one hand, there is a demographic change in the population composition of India, on the other hand, there is also a change in the disease spectrum in the last two decades.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, while on the one hand, over 65 per cent population of India today comprises of age group below 40 years, on the other hand, the number of population above 60 is also constantly on the rise. We would, therefore, have to attend to both of these phenomenon simultaneously, he said.
Not only this, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the fact not fully realised is that diseases like Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus or heart attack, which were hitherto considered to be diseases of middle age or late age, are now also affecting the young. On the other hand, at the same time, he said, diseases of late age, including various cancers which were not prevalent earlier are now becoming manifest because large number of people are living long enough to be affected by these diseases. Thus, there is a disease overlap as well as age overlap which is determining the current health scenario of India, he added.
Dr Jitendra Singh hinted at the mushrooming of private sector health care hospitals and outlets in urban or semi-urban areas, as a result of which, he said, the “urban patient got over-treated while the rural patient was left under-treated”. He said, a balance will have to be drawn so that every new private sector outlet opening in the city areas also gives an undertaking for establishing an outlet in rural areas.
Dr Jitendra Singh lamented that even today in remote areas of Northeast and several other parts of the country, large number of patients did not have access to adequate health care, He said, he had advocated the concept of Helicopter based clinics to provide makeshift speciality OPD services to people in peripheral areas.
National President Indian Medical Association (IMA), Dr K K Aggarwal, President Delhi Medical Association, Dr Vijay Kumar Malhotra and senior Vice President, Dr Vinod Sood also spoke on the occasion.
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