And that's why we hope that this would be only the first of many more such initiatives to come. Because the increasing trend among the Bangladeshi patients to go abroad for treatment spending millions in foreign exchange would hopefully be stemmed through establishment of more similar hospitals. Undoubtedly we should modernise our existing hospital services bringing them at par with the best in the region. We must have a state of the art facilities available in the country. And with keeping that in mind, we must be cognisant of the archaic laws, especially those relating to participation of foreign specialists in our medicare system. We are not saying that we should not patronise our own doctors whom we have trained up by spending money from the exchequer; but the issue here is of transfer of technology and training on modern medical care that is required.

And, lastly, the aim should always be to provide the service to people from all strata of society. Not just the rich and the privileged, middle and low income groups should also have easy access to the medicare as it is also their basic right. We are glad that Apollo has decided to keep ten percent of the beds free of charge for the poor. Also, since it is the epitome of referral hospital, it should keep its doors open to the terminally ill patients of middle and low income groups. Only then it will have served its noble purpose with a laudable human face.