Institutions in the public sector need to demonstrate some of the compassion, intelligence and public spirit that some private institutions bring to their work, Keshav Desiraju, Union Health Secretary said on Saturday.
Speaking at the 20th anniversary celebrations of The Banyan, Mr. Desiraju said the organisation had managed to bring in a remarkable combination of these qualities. While there were others in the private sector with the attributes, it was worrying to see that institutions in the public realm, particularly in health care where the State had a huge role to play, did not exhibit such qualities. There were a few exceptions, but it was necessary to put a system in place in the public sector to tackle issues with intelligence, compassion and public spirit, he added.
Earlier, the Health Secretary was witness to the signing of an MoU between The Banyan’s newest initiative: The Institute of Mental Health, Social Sciences and Transdisciplinary Research, with the Tata Institute for Social Sciences and VU University, Amsterdam.
He observed India needed a large number of health professionals to be deployed widespread across the length and breadth of the nation, only some of them doctors. Nurses, counsellors, caregivers and the wide range of public and community health care workers had to be employed, and all of them required training.
The new institute would try to address the complex and persistent health issues through a combination of research and training, Vandana Gopikumar, one of the founders of the Banyan, explained. The idea was also to produce people who would be able to lead, advocate and conduct research in the sector that straddles mental health and social sciences.
She also recounted The Banyan’s journey of 20 years in a capsule, beginning with how Vaishnavi Jayakumar and she helped a mentally ill woman wandering on the streets of Chennai and gave her shelter. Their task did not stop with just Ramakumari. It grew, as they discovered, by leaps and bounds, as there was a staggering number of mentally ill women in need of care, protection and shelter nearly constantly.
The Banyan’s training course would help create a pool of social workers who are essential to run mental health programmes that would be able to replicate the success that the organisation was able to demonstrate, J. Radhakrishnan, State Health Secretary, said.
N. Ram, Director, Kasturi and Sons, said it was important to build capabilities, as much as empowering people and beneficiaries of programmes. It would help to scale up in a slow and sustainable way in the long run.
Prabha Sridevan, chairperson, Intellectual Property Appellate Board, said The Banyan was able to show empathy by being with the people they were helping.
