Health Minister Kamineni Srinivas on Monday said 24 e-Urban Primary Health Centres had been sanctioned in GVMC limits.
Inaugurating the first two centres at MVP Appughar and Resapavanipalem, he said across the State, they had decided to develop 222 dispensaries into e-Urban health centres to provide affordable treatment to the poor. The hospitals will function 365 days. They will have video-conferencing facility for offering tele-medicine in various specialisation and therapy.
Dr. Srinivas earlier inaugurated a kitchen built at Rs.18 lakh and a paediatrics-thalassemia care centre set up at King George Hospital at a cost of Rs.86.81 lakh.
The e-Urban PHC project was launched in Vijayawada last year and after its success it is being replicated across the State.
Funding is done jointly by the Centre and the State Government. The monthly expenditure towards maintenance is estimated at Rs.10 crore.
Dr. Srinivas said the e-Urban centres would provide 28 diagnostic tests costing Rs.4,000 free. He said Telugu Desam government was committed to making healthcare cost effective adding PPP mode was also chosen to bring about improvement in health delivery system.
He said during past two and a half years, the number of outpatients had gone up by 28 per cent and institutional delivery increased significantly. He said World Bank funds would be spent to further improve health infrastructure.
The Minister later spoke to GVMC Commissioner M. Hari Narayanan on phone and directed him to construct a new building in place of the dilapidated health centre at Kapparada.
MP K. Haribabu, MLAs V. Ramakrishna Babu, P. Vishnu Kumar Raju and Vasupalli Ganesh Kumar, KGH Superintendent G. Arjun and District Medical and Health Officer J. Sarojini were present.