HYDERABAD: The Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, today extended an invitation to the private sector to increase its participation in the health care industry to bring proper and affordable health care within reach of the common people.

Inaugurating the 59th annual conference of the Association of Physicians of India (APICON- 2004) here, he said the Government was discharging its responsibility by improving primary health centres on a par with private hospitals and upgrading tertiary care by modernising Gandhi Hospital and grounding plans to ramp up facilities in the Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) to match those in AIIMS, New Delhi. The Chief Minister explained that Vision-2020 of his Government envisaged a key role for the health sector. In fact, it would be a growth engine for India's economy, developed by 2020. He said that if the excellent work done by Indian doctors in the United States was replicated here, the nation could do wonders.

Already, the medicare industry had taken a big leap by attracting patients from other countries, particularly those in the Gulf region, to seek treatment in India. It would not be long before India became a destination for health tourism since people were going to spend more and more on their health.

Hyderabad, he said, was already on the way to becoming the health capital with a large concentration of corporate hospitals and availability of care in almost every super speciality. He said India's strength in information technology would see it ahead of countries even in Europe in telemedicine.

Mr. Naidu called upon medical practitioners to devise ways to reduce the cost of treatment, drugs, diagnostic tests and even equipment. He pointed out that cost-effectiveness was one of the biggest advantages of the country as it had helped in attracting outsourcing work from the West to the extent that US Congressmen expressed to him concern over the loss of jobs for Americans in their own country. Earlier, the President of API, Maj. Gen. S. Venkataraman, said several countries had started the speciality of family medicine as an independent branch of medicine but this change was yet to happen in India. In the US, general practice had become family medicine in 1989. He said there was an insecure feeling among fresh medical graduates that they would be considered ordinary doctors if they failed to specialize. This feeling should be reversed.

The Chairman of the Organising Committee, V. N. Waghray, welcomed the delegates.