A day after Jana Sena Party president Pawan Kalyan served a 48-hour ultimatum on the State government on the Uddanam kidney disease issue, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu asserted that a few people were resorting to a political blame game for their vested interests.
“Those criticising the government should consider the ground realities,” Mr. Naidu said at a review meeting on the Uddanam issue at his residence on Thursday. The people of the region, who have been haunted by the chronic kidney disease (CKD) for several decades, got relief only with the initiatives taken by the government.
The Chief Minister said that the government took several initiatives as soon as the problem came to its notice. Fifteen mobile medical teams were set up to provide medical assistance in seven mandals where CKD was rampant. Blood samples were collected from 1,01,593 people to test serum creatinine and blood urea.
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Of this, 13,093 were identified for medical assistance and sent to community health centres. NTR laboratory was set up at the Sompet community health centre and dialysis services were being provided in Palasa, Sompet and the area hospital at Palakonda. These were in addition to the dialysis centres located at RIMS at Srikakulam, and the Tekkali Area Hospital. Fifty dialysis machines were put to use at these places. Dialysis was done on 798 patients at five centres.
Mr. Naidu said that the government was extending a monthly pension of ₹2,500 to each of the 2,761 patients who were undergoing treatment at the government dialysis centres. RO plants with a cost of ₹17 crore were also installed in the area.