VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday mooted 16 health hubs in the State, so that people need not rush to Bengaluru, Hyderabad or Chennai for tertiary care. He directed officials to come up with a health hub policy in one month, which includes vaccine production in the State under the government supervision.
At a review meeting with senior officials on the Covid-19 situation in the State, he said the health hubs should be set up in all the 13 district headquarters and also in Municipal Corporations of Vijayawada, Tirupati and Rajahmundry.At least 30-50 acres of land should be acquired for each health hub and five acres should be allotted free of cost to hospitals, which are ready to invest a minimum of `100 crore on the project over a period of three years.Through these health hubs, 80 multispeciality and superspeciality hospitals will come up in the State. These hospitals will support the 16 new teaching hospitals and 16 nursing colleges.
“The health sector will be strengthened with health hubs and incentives being provided by the government will also pave the way for better hospitals in the private sector. The policy will ensure improvement of tertiary care as multispeciality and superspeciality hospitals will come up in the district headquarters and municipal corporations, so that people need not go to other places for highly specialised medical care,” he said and opined that it will also help those going to other places under the YSR Aarogyasri for better treatment.
On Covid-19, the officials informed him that the situation is steadily improving with positivity rate decreasing and recovery rate increasing. The active caseload has also come down over the last one week.There are 46,596 beds in 597 Covid hospitals and of the total, 32,567 have been occupied and 24,985 patients are being treated under Aarogyasri. There are 52,941 beds in 116 Covid Care Centres and of which 16,689 have been occupied. As many as 1,37,436 people are in home isolation, the officials said.When Jagan enquired about the functioning of 104 call centres, the officials told him that every call is being attended and a solution is being provided within three hours.
Calls are also being made regarding black fungus, the cases are being referred to notified hospitals. As many as 19,175 calls were received on May 4. The number of calls came down to 5,421 on May 27. With regard to oxygen supply in the State, the officials informed him that 16 IS O tankers are available and four oxygen express trains with four tankers are running. Alternative arrangements were made in the wake of Yaas cyclone and 812.78 MT of oxygen as pro-cured on May 26. About 670 MT of oxygen is made available on average in the last five days.
Jagan urged the officials not to relax even if the number of Covid cases are on the decline and further strengthen the supply of oxygen in hospitals. He was informed that 66 complaints pertaining to violation of rules by 43 private hospitals were received and Rs 2.4 crore fine was imposed on them. They also informed him that `10 lakh each is being deposited in the name of the children who become orphans following the death of their parents due to Covid. The Chief Minister asked them to look for policies of different companies and banks before depositing the amount so the optimum benefit can be gained.
New policy in one month
Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy directed officials of medical and health to come up with a health hub policy in one month, which includes production of Covid-19 vaccine in the State under the supervision of the government