Dr Satyajit Bose tells Pragya Paramita that there is an urgent need to have good healthcare systems away

“There is a complete need to decentralise the healthcare system in the state as the only good hospitals here are in Kolkata. Every time somebody needs to be operated upon he has to travel to Kolkata. But often people do not have the money or the means to travel to the metropolis which is why it is important to have good healthcare systems in smaller cities as well,” says Bose. The Mission Hospital in Durgapur is a part of his plan towards decentralisation.

Apart from Durgapur,the doctor is contemplating setting up small hospitals which would provide better healthcare at a modest cost in Siliguri and Midnapore.

“Ninety per cent of the people who stay outside Kolkata cannot afford to travel to the city for their treatment and when they do,more often than not,it is too late. It is,therefore,essential to build quality hospitals so that people do not have to rush a patient to big cities,” he says. Citing the example of hospitals abroad,he says that while bigger cities have big institutions even smaller cities offer excellent healthcare.

While Vellore today may have become synonymous with quality healthcare there was a time when hardly anyone had heard of the town. But today,people from all over the country flock to the small town and there are always big queues to get patients admitted,he says.

“It is perhaps the perfect example of a small town becoming famous just for the presence of a good hospital. If they can do it,so can we. And Siliguri and Midnapore are only the first steps towards that goal,” he says.

According to Dr Bose,Mission Hospital broke even barely 11 months after its existence. He urges private hospitals and nursing homes,apart from government ones,to go into similar ventures in the state. Of course,for such initiatives the government too has to provide incentives to the private sector to take the plunge,including providing sops to them.

“In Gujarat the local administration provided many incentives,including waiving taxes for a year,in case anyone wanted to set up a hospital in a two-tier city. Today,there are excellent cardiac centres even in Surat,Baroda and Porbander which are much smaller cities. Something like that has to be done for Bengal to make healthcare accessible to all,” he said.