Bihar government has launched a New Generation Health Guarantee Scheme aiming to make available health cards to 3.40 crore children in the State.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar chaired a meeting of Bihar State Health Mission here this afternoon and stressed the need for accelerating the pace of reaching the health cards to the children.
State Health Secretary Amarjeet Sinha said the Chief Minister had decided to opt out of the chairmanship of the mission and State health minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey would now be the chairman of the mission in his place.
Mr. Sinha said the Chief Minister reviewed the health projects of Stage-I which began in 2006 and expressed satisfaction over increase in turnouts of patients at the Public Health Centres (PHCs) from 39 per month to 5,000 plus per month at present.
Under Stage-I, emphasis was laid on making available doctors and para-medical staff at all the PHCs round-the-clock, construction of buildings and providing a select brand of medicines free of cost, besides improving other infrastructural facilities, he said.
Deputy Chief Minister S K Modi, Health Minister, JD(U) MP Ramsunder Das, state BJP chief C P Thakur, eminent doctors S N Arya and N Prasad, besides Dr P Padmanabham, National Health Resource Centre advisor, representatives of WHO and Gates and Milinda Foundation also attended the meeting.
The meeting decided to launch health stage-II now under which thrust would be laid on medical education and improving medical colleges and hospitals.
Mr. Sinha said the nursing education would soon be taken up in Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) in Patna and Kurji Holy Family hospital.
He said a special patients welfare committee had already been set up in each of the districts to look after the welfare of the poor patients.
The State health mission would now have HRD minister, social welfare minister, panchayati raj minister as co-chairpersons, while the Chief Secretary would ensure the inter-departmental coordination, Mr. Sinha said.
He said Chief Minister would now preside over the State Human Development Mission that would meet once in three months to effectively address the important subjects of human development, to assess the indicators like literacy rate, sanitation awareness, skills for self-employment and other allied human development related issues.
Mr. Sinha said the State government would organise a Monthly Nutritional Health Check Up and Sanitation Awareness camp in each of the villages involving the panchayat representatives, Anganvadi Kendras, teachers and doctors.
