Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has said the government was implementing the family doctor concept by appointing two doctors in each Primary Health Centre (PHC), who would be visiting villages and offering medical services through the 104 service vehicles.
In the last 29 months, a sum of nearly ₹4,000 crore was spent on the Aarogyasri scheme and 2,466 procedures were brought under its purview. Another significant thing which the government did was to widen its scope by increasing the annual income limit to ₹5 lakh, which resulted in the coverage of 95% of the population, the Chief Minister said during a discussion on the health sector in the Legislative Assembly on Thursday.
Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy said that super specialty services were being offered under the Aarogyasri scheme in over 130 empanelled hospitals in cities such as Hyderabad, Chennai and Bengaluru. The YSRCP government has cleared the unpaid bills amounting to ₹680 crore to the network hospitals, which were kept by the previous dispensation.
Health infra
Besides, costly surgeries such as bone-marrow and heart transplantation and cochlear implants were included in the scheme to help the poor. “Sixteen new teaching hospitals are being set up in the State, besides revamping the existing 11 medical colleges. The goal is to have one teaching hospital, one nursing college and a 500-bed super-specialty hospital in every parliamentary constituency,” said Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy.
Steps were taken to strengthen the health sector from village level by establishing 10,032 YSR village clinics, 560 urban health clinics, 1,321 PHCs, 52 area hospitals and 191 community health centres at a total cost of ₹16,255 crore.
The Chief Minister further said for the first time, the government has introduced the YSR Aarogya Asara scheme, as part of which ₹5,000 is paid to patients during their recovery from surgeries, and providing monthly pensions ranging from ₹3,000 to ₹10,000 to people suffering from chronic ailments.
As part of its special focus on the health of children, the government has planned to set up three exclusive hospitals for children to provide advanced treatments, in addition to the existing one in Tirupati.
COVID-19 management
The Chief Minister said that the State had effectively tackled the pandemic. A total of 3.02 crore people have undergone testing. “As far as the vaccination drive is concerned, 100 % of those aged above 18 years would be covered by March 2022. So far, 3.4 crore people have been administered at least one dose and 2.39 crore people have received both the doses,” he said.
