Minister for Health T. Harish Rao told the Assembly on Sunday that a total of 345 Basti Dawakhanas were functioning in the State out of the sanctioned 496. Of them, 264 were functioning in GHMC, 36 in urban areas surrounding GHMC and another 45 in other urban local bodies.
In response to a question raised by MLAs K.P. Vivekanand, B. Ganesh Gupta, K. Chander, Jaffar Hussain, V.M. Abraham and K. Bhupal Reddy during the Question Hour, the Minister explained that over one crore people had availed out-patient services so far. “Basti Dawakhanas are driving away ‘susthi’ (ill-health) of the poor and have become ‘dosti’ dawakhanas,” he said.
About 57 types of health tests were being done in locality clinics and by March-end, the number would be increased to 134. Even tests like lipid profile and thyroid profile were being done and these two tests alone had saved about ₹20 crore for the poor with 1.48 lakh lipid and 1.09 lakh thyroid profile tests. About 158 types of medicines were also being supplied free to the needy in these clinics.
Explaining the impact of Basti Dawakhanas on primary health services, the Minister said that they had reduced the out-patient service burden on major hospitals in the city. The OP number at Osmania Medical College had come down to 5 lakh in 2022 from 12 lakh in 2019, at Gandhi Hospital to 3.7 lakh from 6.5 lakh, to 5.3 lakh from 8 lakh at Niloufer and at Fever Hospital to 1.12 lakh from 4.3 lakh.
He announced filling 1,540 ASHA worker posts in GHMC limits in Hyderabad, Medchal and Rangareddy districts soon and added that the bio-metric attendance system would be introduced in Basti Dawakhanas to ensure attendance and availability of the staff.
To a question on residential schools and colleges raised by G. Kishore Kumar, N. Bhagath, B. Haripriya, Sandra Venkata Veeraiah, Kausar Mohiuddin, Minister for Education P. Sabitha Indra Reddy stated that after 2014, 709 residential schools and colleges were established and the intake had gone up from 1.25 lakh to 5.2 lakh students.
