World Bank aid to develop 7,500 health sub-centres as electronic centres

Amaravati: The World Bank will be funding for development of 7,500 health sub-centres as electronic sub-centres for the first time in the world, an official press release from the Chief Minister’s office said on Tuesday.

At the e-sub centres, e-health records will be maintained and tele medicine facility would be provided to all the centres. The e- health centres include 1147 Primary Health Centres, 192 community health centres, 31 area hospitals, 13 district hospitals and 23 teaching hospitals.

The World Bank team members including Jorge Coarasa, programme leader, Human development, Kari Hurt, senior operations officer and Mohini Kak, health specialist, along with Special Chief Secretary, Health Medical and Family welfare Poonam Malakondaiah and Advisor to govt on Medical and Health Jitender Sharma and CM’s secretary Girija Sankar  met Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu at Praja Vedika here on Tuesday evening and discussed the project.

The Medical and Health officials informed the Chief Minister that telemedicine facility would be introduced in 7,500 hospitals under the project. They said that they already introduced the project on pilot basis in 65 hospitals especially in tribal areas and were getting good results.

The Chief Minister explained to the World Bank team to bring world expertise to fill the gaps in medical and health services in the state. He explained how the state govt has been making efforts to improve health services by introducing IT enabled health services. He said sufficient data is available in the state and the govt has been releasing health bulletin every month. 

The Chief Minister stressed the need for integration of all the services to achieve perfection. He sought the cooperation of World Bank for innovation and research. Maternal and infant mortality reduction project: The Chief Minister launched three programmes in health sector. The first one is reduction of maternal and infant mortality rate.

TB Eradication project: The second programme is real time polymerase chain reaction (RTPCR) which is highly sensitive and diagnoses TB in more than 90 per cent drug resistant TB within one hour whereas the conventional methods take two months for detection of Drug resistant TB. The programme aims to eradicate TB by 2022.

Green hospitals Project: The Third programme is to launch green hospitals.  Under the programme the Health Medical and Family Welfare department signed tripartite agreement with NREDCAP and two service providers to take up solar roof top projects. Under the programme in the first phase, 23 area hospitals and 22 teaching hospitals will be covered.