Rs 1,000 crore WB aid to upgrade TN hospitals likely

Replying to the debate on demands for grants for his department in the Assembly, the Minister said the World Bank had been granting Rs 3,000 crore assistance for upgradation of hospitals in the country every year.

In the last five decades, the grants were being utilised for hospitals in the northern states. For the first time, the state government had submitted a project report, which Union Minister of State for Health N T Shanmugam had forwarded to the World Bank. There are 1,399 PHCs, 164 taluk hospitals, 23 district hospitals and 11 medical college hospitals in the State.

Moreover, the Government would spend Rs 1 crore for procuring sophisticated medical equipment and improving facilities in PHCs. The state had sought the Centre’s permission for opening 10 new PHCs.

Veerasamy announced that the Centre would set up a 500-bed All-India Medical Research Institute-cum-Hospital near Madurai on a 100-acre plot at a cost of Rs 100 crore. The Institute would be on the lines of AIIMS, New Delhi and JIPMER, Pondicherry.

The Government had asked the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission to take up a special recruitment drive to fill about 350 vacancies of lady doctors in PHCs in the next two to three months. Orders had been issued for appointing 719 doctors for PHCs. Many of them had already joined duty, while the rest would report by this month-end.

He said 40 more PHCs in Tamil Nadu would function 24 hours-a-day from this year and Rs 80 lakh had been sanctioned for the purpose.

The Minister said all the 652 PHCs in the state would have own buildings by the year-end. Buildings had been constructed for 600 PHCs at a cost of Rs 52 crore, while the construction for 45 other PHCs would be completed in a couple of months. The department was searching for suitable land for constructing buildings for the rest of the PHCs.

Cooperative bodies would be permitted to adopt Government hospitals for improving basic facilities. In the first phase, three peripheral hospitals in the city, including those at Periyar Nagar and Anna Nagar, would be given for adoption.

To tackle the shortage of obstetricians, gynecologists and anesthetists in taluk hospitals, 100 such hospitals would be permitted to appoint specialists for round-the-clock service. They would be provided honorarium for the service.

He said the Government would provide transport facilities, including ambulances, for taking poor patients screened under the `Varuman kappom’ scheme to bigger hospitals. Though 1,48,541 persons out of 23,53,716 persons, who attended the health camps, were advised further medical assistance, only 19,034 of them had pursued the treatment, owing to difficulties of transport.

The other announcements made by the Minister include: