KOCHI: Hospitals and medical laboratories need to be accredited to ensure quality standards in healthcare, said eminent cardiac surgeon M.S. Valiathan.

Delivering the `Dr. P.A. Verghese Memorial oration 2006,' titled `Healthcare in transition,' here on Sunday, Dr. Valiathan stressed on the need for quality care in all the primary, secondary and tertiary level hospitals, which has been prescribed by a national panel of the Government.

"The lack of any serious effort by hospitals and medical personnel to develop and enforce standards on a voluntary basis is one of the reasons why the public in India is rapidly losing confidence in hospitals," he said.

No hospital can claim 100 per cent rate of cure. "About 2-3 per cent mortality and complication rate should be acceptable while we cannot accept something like 20 per cent," he added.

He said professional associations in the medical field should take initiatives to set standards, like a few creditable bodies in the US have done. But, we have to set our own standards and not copy them, he said.

Like the hospitals, medical laboratories need to be accredited too. "I was amazed that many professionals in the field did not even know of the NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories). And when I found a privately-run laboratory going through the laborious process of accreditation, I went and congratulated him," he said.

Access, quality and innovation are the three important parameters of health care system, said Dr. Valiathan. Access to health care decreases proportionately from primary to tertiary care, he said. This is primarily because of poor funding and bad management.

However, there is some hope with a definite increase in the public spending in the health sector in the 11th Plan from 1.3 per cent of the GDP to 3 per cent and State being given the purchasing power of treatment and not be just a provider of treatment, he said.

The primary health centres need to be embedded in the community, he said.

Knowledge being a commodity these days, we have to make sure that we invest enough into it, said Dr. Valiathan. There will be crisis at home if we keep importing knowledge, he said. But, he cautioned that the research and development projects should be based on academic and industry interest.

Innovation should be the hallmark in R&D so that expertise in instrumentation should be developed, he said.

An industry is needed to develop components and subsystems, perhaps with the help of MNCs, he added. "There should be a mission to develop medical instruments."

Information technology applications, biotechnology and nanotechnology will completely change the way a disease is treated and managed, he said. While the healthcare industry in the country needs to catch up on a number of things compared to the West and other developing countries like China, there is a history of achievements that cannot be ignored, he said.

He said according the World Health Organisation report; the country has 16.5 per cent of the world's total population and 20 per cent of the total diseases in the world.

Justice M. Ramachandran, judge, High Court, inaugurated the programme. P.V. Antony, managing director, Medical Trust, welcomed the gathering. C.J. John, psychiatrist, gave an introduction to the oration while Jose Chaco Periappuram, cardiac surgeon, introduced the orator. P.V. Louis, medical director, proposed the vote of thanks.

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