In a bid to make treatment of diseases affordable for the poor, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday announced at a function in SSKM hospital that all the beds in government hospitals in West Bengal will be free.
She said all government hospitals in the city, districts, sub-divisions and even primary health centres would have free beds as all paid beds were being converted into free ones.
“We will increase 12,000 beds in government hospitals,” Mamata, who also holds the health portfolio, said, adding that five government and three private hospitals were coming up soon in the state.
About 50,000 paying beds in these hospitals will now become free, B R Satpathy, Director of Health Services of the state government, told The Indian Express.
At present, around 40 lakh people in the state are dependant on government hospitals and the state has set a target of constructing 40 multi super-speciality hospitals by 2015 for which staff recruitment is already on.
The Chief Minister also said there were already 86 fair price medicine shops in the state offering about 70 per cent discount. “We will open 50 more fair price diagnostic centres,” she said.
Mamata also announced to set up eight more medical colleges—five government and three in the private sector— in the coming two years and claimed that altogether, 10,000 doctors and nurses would be appointed, inviting retired nurses and doctors to come back to service. “I request medical graduates to stay in our state and spend some time in the villages to cater to the poor,’’ Mamata said.
To tackle shortage of medical staff, the government has also decided to increase the retirement age of doctors in state ESI hospitals from 60 to 62 and those of medical teachers to 65.
To augment child healthcare infrastructure, the health department is also coming up with 17 mother and child hubs at a cost of Rs 20 crore, each.