Health Minister K.R. Ramesh Kumar said here on Sunday that all taluk-level public hospitals would be upgraded with Intensive Care Units (ICU) and generic medicine shops.
Inaugurating the taluk hospitals at Kundagol here, Mr. Kumar said the government was also contemplating introducing telemedicine facilities at the taluk hospitals. The government had given top priority to improving facilities and health infrastructure at the taluk hospitals, where a maximum number of patients from rural areas come for treatment. Establishing ICUs at the hospitals would save lives in critical circumstances.
Telemedicine facilities would be added benefits to patients. It would avoid the burden of taking patients to super speciality hospitals. The doctors at the taluk hospitals can seek specialists’ opinions and treatment for the patient with the added facility, he added.
The ICU at the Kundagol Taluk hospital would be functional by mid-January. ICUs at the these hospitals would be built using funds from local MLAs of Rs. 15 lakh and local MPs of Rs. 5 lakh from MP LAD fund. The remaining Rs. 7 lakh would be borne by the Health Department.
The dialysis unit at Kundagol Taluk would start functioning by the end of January, Mr. Kumar said and told the district health officer to find a suitable place on the hospital premises to establish the unit, if a building was not available for the it. The government would sanction the grant for it. The dialysis facility would be free of cost.
Any patient suffering from kidney failure, irrespective of his or her economical background, could avail of this facility. The unit would be outsourced. They would install the machines and take care of all the necessary requirement, including provision of RO water. A nephrologist and trained nurses would be deployed at the unit. Besides this, the generic medicine unit too would be set up here shortly, the Minister said.
