Hyderabad: Eatala Rajender wants most of patients be treated at district hospitals

Hyderabad: Health Minister Eatala Rajender wanted 90% of patients to be treated in Primary Health Centers and District and Area Hospitals. He said only those with major ailments should be referred to tertiary care hospitals Gandhi, and Osmania Hospitals.

The Health Minister held a day-long review on Saturday with senior officials from different wings of the Health department including DME, TVVP, DPH, Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Unani, Yoga & Naturopathy departments.

Eatala stated that every house became an Ayurveda center in this corona pandemic by switching to or following practices and medicines of the ancient medical form. He ordered filling of teaching posts in Ayurveda, Unani, Homeopathy, Naturopathy & Yoga wings immediately. Eatala, also expressed dissatisfaction over non-implementation of several key decisions taken in the past after lengthy reviews on Ayush department.

He wanted Ayush Dispensary Centers to be converted into Wellness Centers. Currently, 440 government dispensaries and 394 NRHM dispensaries are functioning in the State. He instructed all Ayush dispensaries where less patients are coming to be moved into PHCs. Further, the Health Minister wanted all PHCs to have Ayush units also.

Eatala wanted a task force to be set up for the development of Ayush in the State and a full report be prepared. Reviewing the functioning of Vaidya Vidhana Parishad, the Minister suggested that all the bottlenecks for recruitment should be resolved.

He said a decision would be taken in consultation with the Chief Minister to fill the vacant posts by the Medical Recruitment Board once every 6 months.

Eatala wanted modifications in rules and regulations to take action against staff showing callous attitude at work. Eatala wanted all TVVP hospitals to have a patient counselor and reception counter to guide patients.

Reviewing Public Health wing, Eatala asked for details of all the vacancies from the sub-center to the PHC level. He said necessary steps should be taken for time-bound promotions. After doing in-service PG, services of PHC doctors should be utilised in VVP hospitals and DME hospitals, he said.

He made a mention of the State government's stand on health and various policies to the Central government earlier. Eatala explained that Telangana made it clear that States should be not forced to follow any policy (indirect reference to Ayushman Bharat) that Centre might think of implementing across the country without looking into some of the better schemes already under implementation in some States.