Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad said here on Monday that every year 20 lakh children and 70,000 pregnant women die due to insufficient medical facilities.
“The private sector has a big role to play in providing health facilities. When the rich go to private hospitals, the poor get a place in the government hospitals,” he said, while inaugurating a private 330-bed multi-speciality, tertiary-care hospital at Mira Road, 60 km from here.
He said building hospitals was the responsibility of the State governments, but they do not have enough resources to serve the growing population. “We have invested Rs. 45,000 crore in the health sector. We will double the investment in the next five years so that the hospitals and health centres will be able to serve the growing population,” he said.
