Youth should value Christian institutions’ impact on India: Derek O'Brien

Senior Trinamool Congress leader Derek OBrien on Saturday highlighted the contributions of Christianrun health institutions in the country especially during the COVID19 pandemic and called upon the youth to focus on the positive role the community plays in nation building especially in the sectors of health and educationAddressing members of the Christian community at an event in Chennai Derek OBrien also stressed that the youth should not be drawn into negative communication of the RSS and highlighted the work being done by Christian institutionsThe TMC Rajya Sabha Parliamentary Party leader also slammed the Union government over the issue of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act FCRA licenses of several Christianrun NGOs being suspended and also alleged discrepancies in figures regarding COVID deathsDerek OBrien was delivering the keynote address on the theme Students in pursuit of change role of Christian institutions in healthcare at the centenary celebrations of All India Catholic University Federation AICUF in Chennai the fourth in the lsquoSpeak Uprsquo series being addressed by the TMC leaderShow them the facts figures and highlight the huge contribution this microscopic minority has made in building our great nation OBrien saidHighlighting the role of the community during the COVID19 pandemic he claimed over 1000 hospitals with 60000 inpatient beds were offered by Christian institutions during that periodOver 80 per cent of work done by Christian healthcare institutions are in remote medically unserved regions These institutions serve over two per cent of Indias population around 25 crore people he saidThe TMC leader also highlighted that the Catholic Health Association of India CHAI is the largest nongovernmental healthcare network in India with over 3500 institutions and 76000 health professionalsHe said the Christian Medical Association of India CMAI has 270 member institutions 10000 health professionals and 46 nursing schools The Emmanuel Hospital Association EHA runs 20 hospitals while the Christian Medical College CMC Vellore is a 3000bed multispecialty healthcare system with seven campusesReplying to a question on the issue of FCRA licenses for some Christianrun institutions being cancelled he said All of us are fighting for this Unfortunately twothree years ago they even had a plan to stop the Missionaries Of Charity from receiving funds All political parties are opposed to a particular party we are all fighting they are doing such a good job why are you doing this why are you targeting themOn December 27 2021 the Home Ministry had declined renewing the FCRA license for the Missionaries Of Charity founded by Mother Teresa stating that some adverse inputs were noticed while considering the renewal application The license was however renewed days later on January 8 2022Referring to the recently released death registration data the TMC leader alleged that an analysis of the report released last week by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India reveals that there were over 20 lakh more COVID deaths in 2021 than originally reported He also said the highest undercounting of deaths was from GujaratAccording to the Vital Statistics report for 2021 based on the Civil Registration System CRS released last week the number of registered deaths increased from 812 lakh in 2020 to 1022 lakhs in 2021 The report for 2020 said the number of registered deaths increased from 764 lakh in 2019 to 812 lakh in 2020Last week government sources claimed Indias cumulative excess mortality for 20202021 was 93 per cent higher than expected deaths a figure which was lower than that of the US Italy and RussiaSo far Speak Up events have been held by OBrien in Ahmedabad and BengaluruThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoeveratOptionskeyd0ddb8ef8f1a62a8cdd22fac27fc5ea7formatiframeheight90width728params