The Health and Medical Education Departments came under fire in the Legislative Council on Monday, with opposition members questioning the need for ‘Namma Clinics’ in urban areas when the existing Primary Health Centers (PHCs) are poor.
Raising the issue, JD(S) member CN Manje Gowda asked why the government was bringing Namma clinics instead of upgrading the existing health facilities. “Where do you find doctors for Namma Clinic when you don’t have enough doctors for the existing facilities?” He asked.
Pvt. cited. hospital
“Do you know about the problems faced by patients in PHCs? While shortage of doctors is a common perennial problem, lack of diagnostic and scanning facilities in government hospitals leads to referral of patients to private centres. Patients are given prescriptions to buy medicines from outside. Lokayukta has also inspected and found many anomalies in government hospitals,” said Congress member Abdul Jabbar.
“Though dialysis and scanning facilities are available, patients are referred to private centres,” he said. The member pointed out that doctors do not have residential fasciitis in villages and are not found at work during night time. “Who will attend the emergency at night?” He asked.
2,000 appointed
Responding to this, Health and Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar said 2,000 doctors have been appointed in one and a half year. In addition, around 4,000 doctors are also being deployed under the mandatory rural service norms. He said that all the PHCs have less staff.
Stating that 438 Namma clinics would be operational by October, the Minister said that the clinics would provide 12 different services.
The Minister said that 100 PHCs will be upgraded into Community Health Centers this year. “Measures are being initiated to make the PHC working 24/7. A Grievance Cell has been set up to listen to the complaints of the patients and resolve them within 15 days. We have increased the dialysis cycle from 3,000 to 60,000 per month,” he said.
retirement benefits
BJP member Ayanur Manjunath questioned why the medical education department did not give the retirement benefits of the National Pension Scheme or the old pension scheme to the employees of autonomous medical institutions. “Those who joined in 2006-2007 are not getting any retirement benefits. You are the head of the governing council in such institutions as a minister. Why didn’t you provide this facility?” He asked
Mr. Sudhakar replied that the institutions had to bear the cost of providing these benefits till 2020 after which an order has been issued which provides for 10% matching grant from the government. “We will discuss with the finance department how compensation can be given to the people who are deprived of such benefits,” he said.