Lucknow: The Vice President of India, Dr. M. Hamid Ansari, addressed the 4th Convocation Ceremony of the Chhatrapati Sahuji Maharaj Medical University here today.

Addressing students and teachers present at the function, Dr. Ansari said, "Rapid economic growth of the past decade has not only lifted many of our people from poverty but also brought about highly uneven access to the fruits of development along multiple dimensions of region, class, community and gender."

Dr. Ansari appealed to all graduating students to ponder over their professional role and societal expectation and called upon them to perform the inherent public duties of their profession even as they pursue their careers in the private sector.

The Vice President expressed his concern that the life expectancy at birth is 56 years in Uttar Pradesh as against 74 years in Kerala. "It would thus seem that the state you are born into determines how long you would live", he said.

It is to be recalled that the state of health of citizens is a component of the globally and nationally accepted parameters of human development.

On this count, and as the State Planning Department has noted, "UP continues to languish at a low level of human development".

"We must take note of the growing importance of health insurance for various segments of the population. Central and State Governments are enhancing their support for health insurance coverage in limited geographical and occupational contexts, with some success", said Dr. Ansari.

"Health insurance provides a way of risk pooling and cost sharing among various segments of the population. While this is not a panacea, Uttar Pradesh could look at the successful experience of other governments and seek to emulate where possible", he added.

The Vice President further said, "It carries the weight of history and the legacy of impressive achievements of its distinguished alumni. As the first residential medical university in the country, it had performed a pioneering role since its inception almost a century ago".

"The distinguished awardees of the honorary degree in sciences fully deserve the recognition bestowed upon them for their outstanding contributions to medicine, medical education and public service".

"Convocation is a 'rite of passage' from the academia; for the professionals it also marks their formal entry into a select group having its own ethics, norms and codes of conduct".

Ansari also called for augmentation of physical infrastructure for enhancing the human resources in the health sector. "There is an acute shortage of doctors and paramedics", Ansari said.

UP has 11 medical colleges, and faces a deficit of 24 medical colleges based on the norm of 1 medical college per 50 lakh population. There are less than 5900 sanctioned posts of nurses for the whole state and over 800 of these remain vacant.

It is estimated that in the next six years, UP would need around 1 lakh nurses.