|
The Institute has organised a Public Health Lecture on 18th of August,
2003. Dr. H Sudarshan, Vigilance Director, Karnataka Lokayukta
(Health) spoke on Epidemic of Corruption in Health Services.
Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan, National Co-ordinator, Lok Satta movement
chaired the session.
Dr. Sudarshan is a recipient of many prestigious awards and honours
in recognition of his outstanding work in the filed of Tribal Welfare,
Health and Educational Services and Dedicated service for community
development. He was awarded Padma Shree by the President of India in
2000. He is recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (Alternate Nobel
Prize) in 1994. Dr. Sudarshan is currently the Chairman of the
Karnataka Health Task Force and Vigilance Director of the Karnataka
Lok Ayukta, the state's main corruption fighting body.
Dr. Jayprakash Narayan is well known in the state for his work to
increase public accountability foster democracy. He has been in the forefront of
Lok Satta, which is a grassroots initiative to promote accountability
and transparency in government.
Dr. Sudarshan gave an extraordinary and insightful presentation on
corruption. As aptly said by the chair Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan, Dr.
Sudarshan has remarkable courage. We criticise the govt.. and leave
govt. for its mal functionality, but Dr. Sudarshan who worked outside
the government all his life is serving the govt. in the task force (Lokayukta).
His presentation in PDFormat is available on the net.
Dr. Jayaparaksh Narayan, the chair gave his comments saying that
though we have a gloomy picture of the situation we also have a sense
of optimism. He said corruption is in viscious cycle. He drew
attention to the govt. allocating .9% of GDP to health sector and
spending 17% of the total income on health expenditure should make us
hang our heads in shame.
Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan saw hope in fighting the corruption by way
of public accountability, decentralisation of corruption that is
community ownership, anti corruption mechanisms, innovative measures
and also link between the public and private sector. He mentioned
about the US false claim act where corruption in services is being
curtailed.
He finally stressed that one should not only punish the people who
are corrupt but also maintain the standards of integrity and raise
confidence about the medical profession and said that we can and will
fight corruption.
Dr. Sudarshan at the end of the lecture asked the participants to
raise their hands who are willing to take a vow not to take bribe and
give bribe. 90% of the participants raised their hands and made a vow
not to take and give bribe.
The lecture was attended by a distinguished gathering of health
officials, doctors, administrators, officials from various national
and international non governmental organisations, members of the
academia and media personnel.
|
