Efforts afoot to complete five super specialty hospitals this year: Harish

Hyderabad: Health Minister T Harish Rao on Sunday said that the government would complete the construction of four super specialty hospitals in Hyderabad and one in Warangal this year.

He said the target of the government for 2023 was also to set up food safety labs to control adulteration of food. The minister released the annual report of the department for 2022 at the MCRHRD institute. He said the government would strengthen the Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital this year. The department would have non-budgetary allocations for various projects in the pipeline.

Rao said the achievement of the year was establishing eight medical colleges at one go. While there were only three colleges in the last 60 years, eight were started with 150 MBBS seats each. The NITI Ayog has rewarded the State as third in terms of performance in the country (in health), the minister said. The maternal mortality rate decreased from 56 deaths per lakh to 43 and infant mMortality rate fell from 23 to 21. "The government is working with the theme 'Health for Every Age- Health at Every Stage- towards Arogya Telangana'.

The minister said in 2022 the government started construction of super specialty hospitals at LB Nagar, Alwal and Sanathnagar with over 1,000 beds and another one in Warangal with 2,000 beds. With these hospitals, the State would have 8,200 super specialty beds. The OP services in the State increased by 60 lakh patients compared to previous year. Similarly, the inpatients were three lakh; 75,000 surgeries had taken place in government hospitals.

He informed that the KCR Nutrition Kits had helped in overcoming the problem of anaemia in pregnant women. He said 926 doctors were recruited in a single day; a GO was also issued for starting nine medical colleges in the State.

The health minister said institutional deliveries increased in the State thanks to schemes like KCR Kits. Caesarean surgeries have been reduced because of incentivising the normal deliveries. He talked about the Kanti Velugu phase II program being carried out across the State. He said over 27,000 beds have oxygen facilities in the State.

The minister said there were a few painful incidents like deaths of women in Ibrahimpatnam CHC and Malakpet hospital. In this regard, the government, he stated, was taking all precautions. He said over 700 organ donations had taken place in government hospitals this year under the Jeevan Daan scheme. Responding to the chargesheet by the Congress party, Rao said the Congress-ruled Rajasthan was ranked 16th, Chhattisgarh 10th and Himachal Pradesh 7th in the country.