To mark the occasion of the World Health Day on Wednesday, the Department of Community Medicine and Family Medicine (CMFM), All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bhubaneswar, organised a webinar to discuss on how to address challenges in tackling inequality in health, gender and society etc. The speakers for webinar were Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, National Professional Officer- Health Systems, WHO India, along with Prof (Dr) Gitanjali Batmanabane, Director AIIMS Bhubaneswar, Prof (Dr) Debasish Hota, Dean AIIMS Bhubaneswar, Prof (Dr) Sonu H Subha, HOD Dept of CM&FM, Dr Binod K Patro, Additional Professor AIIMS Bhubaneswar, Sourav Bhattacharjee, Nutrition Specialist, Unicef Odisha and Dr Swayam Pragyan Parida, Associate Professor Dept of CMFM AIIMS Bhubaneswar.
The webinar began with an address note by Directot Dr Batmanabane, who raised concern over issues of inequality in healthcare and emphasized on reflecting upon it. Dr. Debasish Hota stated that there should be fair distribution of opportunity and facility across all population of the world.
Dr Chandrakant Lahariya opined that Covid 19 had aggravated inequities in health across world. He suggested with increase in health equities, improvement in health outcome would occur. Speaking on hender equality, Dr Sonu H Subba said inequalities are loopholes that are draining our system and India ranked 140 out of 156 in global gender gap index. She suggested ways to bridge the gender gap. Sourav Bhattacharjee shared that India is placed at 100th position out of 119 countries, in terms of food security and nearly 4 out of 10 kids in India are stunted. Dr Binod K Patro stressed upon inequalities in WASH services and its repercussions.