VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy will launch the family physician concept at Lingamguntla in the Chilakaluripet Assembly constituency of Palnadu district on Thursday. The State government has come up with the family physician concept to strengthen health services at the village level with emphasis on preventive health.
As part of implementing the family physician concept, the government has set up two PHCs or one PHC and one CHC in each mandal. All the PHCs are equipped with 2,873 doctors and 15,516 paramedical staff. One of the doctors in each PHC out of two takes care of OP at PHC and the other visits the mapped Village Health Clinic (VHC) in 104 mobile medical units (MMU) twice a month as per a pre-fixed schedule on a rotation basis. Each doctor is mapped to a maximum of 6-7 villages and visits the same VHCs every month.
Strengthening of primary health facilities is taken up by the Health Department following the instructions of Minister for Health, Medical, and Family Welfare Vidadala Rajini. As part of it, the government has sanctioned 10,032 Dr YSR rural health clinics, each covering a population of 2,500 on average in place of 7,458 sub-centers earlier.
MT Krishna Babu, Principal Secretary (HM&FW), said, “As many as 151 additional PHCs have been sanctioned in addition to 1,142 PHCs and altogether 1,293 PHCs have been made available. Four reserve doctors for each district and one reserve doctor for each CHC (173) are sanctioned and 936 MMUs are in operation to ensure a minimum of two visits for each village secretariat every month.”