Health Minister Harish Rao said on Thursday that awareness on public health has increased considerably in the society after the COVID pandemic, with both people and governments understanding its importance leading to scaling up of facilities in public and private sectors.
Speaking after inaugurating the new academic building complex of the Indian Institute of Public Health (IIPH) at Rajendranagar here on Thursday, he recollected that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had allotted 4.5 acres land for the institute and also ₹10 crore funding for IIPH.
The Minister said that the efforts initiated by the Telangana Government for the last eight years had started yielding results and programmes such as Palle Pragathi and Pattana Pragathi had controlled the incidence of seasonal diseases such as malaria and dengue. The State has made rapid strides in the public health sector and its progress on several health indices was an indication of it.
He pointed out that the Centre had complimented Telangana at Rajya Sabha recently for its progress in the health sector. He noted that Telangana was in the third position in the country in terms of spending on health services.
However, efforts were on to make the State number one in the health sector and the State was sparing 4.5% of its budget estimates on this sector now. It had gone up from ₹6,295 crore to ₹11,440 crore against just 1.1% allocated by the Centre in its budget estimates.
To improve the health status of people in slums, the State Government had decided to open 390 basti dawakhanas (area clinics) in Hyderabad and 259 of them were opened already. The initiative was complimented by the 15th Finance Commission.
The Minister stated that as part of strengthening public health, the government had appointed public management people in 630 public health centres to improve the delivery of health services at the village level. Unlike any other State, Telangana was establishing a government medical college in each district and also setting up nursing colleges as affiliated institutions to medical colleges.
As part of efforts to bring more speciality healthcare to the reach of people, the government has taken up construction of six new super speciality hospitals, Mr. Harish Rao said.
Advisor to State Government Rajeev Sharma, president of IIPH Dr. K. Srinath Reddy, and local legislator T. Prakash Goud were present.
