FICCI -TANCARE Award for Dr. G.Bakthavathsalam

The prestigious ”FICCI-TANCARE Lifetime Achievement Award” was conferred on KG Hospital Chairman Dr G.Bakthavathsalam in recognition of the distinguished services rendered by him in the health care sector at a function got up at Hotel Hilton in Chennai on Friday, 23rd June, 2017.The award was bestowed upon Dr Bakthavathsalam by Dr J.Radhakrishnan, Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department, Government of Tamil Nadu, at the 10th edition of the TANCARE-2017 (Tamil Nadu Healthcare Conference).

As KG Hospital has been playing a pivotal role in promoting healthcare delivery system, including medical tourism, the FICCI had made Dr Bakthavathsalam to participate in the panel discussion on the topic “Making Tamil Nadu a leading Global Medical Tourism destination” to ascertain his valuable thoughts on how to give a thrust to medical tourism.

Challenges to be met

Dr Radhakrishnan in his presidential address said that Tamil Nadu was considered to be the best State in performing organ transplants and family planning procedures. But, still there were great expectations from the people because the healthcare sector was facing challenges on treating non-communicable and communicable diseases.

The Principal Secretary noted that while the instances of infanticide in places such as Usilampatti, Salem and Dharmapuri had drastically come down, the occurrences of foeticide had thrown up challenges.

He also stated that Tamil Nadu had the distinction of having 52 government medical colleges and over one lakh registered doctors. Besides these, there were state-of-the-art private hospitals.

Dr Radhakrishnan emphatically said, “Unless the government hospitals and private hospitals act in a complementary manner, they can hardly deliver healthcare to the satisfaction of the people.” He promised all support from the State Government to the healthcare industry to perform better.

‘Honour for entire medical fraternity’

KG Hospital Chairman Dr Bakthavathsalam in his acceptance speech said that next to Padma Shri Award, bestowed upon him by the former President A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, the “FICCI—TANCARE Lifetime Achievement Award” was a great honour done to him.

In fact, he deemed the award as an honour given not to an individual but to the whole of medical fraternity by an industrial body like the FICCI. Doctors were the most industrious professionals who were ready to serve the patients even at middle of the night

Dr Bakthavathsalam further said that patients who were chain smokers and who were reeking alcohol used to wake up doctors at wee hours for certain ailments. Whether the patients were relatives or not the doctors would not turn them away, but would have to give them necessary treatment.

Or else, the doctors would be geared or there would be road roko in protest against the doctor’s refusal to attend on the patients. Dr Bakthavathsalam said that because of the charitable attitude of doctors, they were respected and revered next to God. “Doctor is the one among few professionals whose feet the people touch,” he said.

Dr Bakthavathsalam also said that it was on his father Govindaswamy Naidu’s desire he gave up his medical practice in the US and returned to India, even though the doctors in our country were not paid even 1/100th of what was paid in the US.

“If one were to serve in India, where there are 101 negative things, there must at least be one positive thing. My wife is the most positive person and moreover India is a beautiful country in which 35 per cent of the people are poor. If the doctors will not contribute (to improve their lot) who else will contribute?” he asked.

Photo Left to Right:

Ar Rm Arun,Chairman, FICCI TNSC, Dr J Radhakrishnan IAS, Principal Secretary to Govt., Govt. of Tamil Nadu, Dr.G.Bakthavathsalam, Chairman, KG Hospital, Dr. GSK Velu, Founder & Managing Director, Trivitron Group,  P. Murari IAS, Advisor to FICCI President & Former Secretary to President of India, and Dr. T.N.  Ravisankar President, Indian Medical Association, Tamil Nadu State Branch