Hyderabad: Since attaining statehood, Telangana has consistently done well in vital health care indices, which usually reflect the performance of the health of a population. In the last few years, Telangana’s healthcare parameters like maternal and infant mortality rates, neonatal, under-5 mortality, and total fatality rates have outperformed the country’s national averages.
Sustained investment in upgrading health infrastructure and regular recruitment of healthcare workers at every level including primary, secondary, and tertiary State-run health care facilities has gone a long way in improving the vital healthcare parameters of the State.
Since the formation of Telangana, the State government has allocated and spent a staggering Rs 677.42 crore only towards the procurement of new diagnostic medical equipment, infrastructure and financially supporting the KCR Kits scheme, the financial benefit scheme for pregnant women in Telangana.
According to Telangana State Statistical Abstract, to improve the quality of medical education, in the last few years, there has been a concerted effort to increase medical seats and launch new medical colleges in the State. To address the deficiencies in medical infrastructure (civil works) that were pointed out by the inspecting teams of the Medical Council of India (MCI) in various medical colleges, the State government in the last few years had sanctioned Rs 244.24 crore out of which nearly Rs 154.99 crore was spent to plug the deficiencies.
Apart from improving infrastructure, the authorities had also set aside nearly Rs 300 crore to build two new medical colleges from scratch. Already, one medical college is ready at a cost of Rs 221crore and in the current academic year, two new medical colleges at Nalgonda and Suryapet, with 150 medical seats each have already started.
Overall, apart from the existing nine government medical colleges, the health authorities have plans to add seven more medical colleges in the newly formed districts. The proposed districts where medical colleges are expected to be set up include Khammam, Karimnagar, Sangareddy, Mancherial, Bhadrachalam, Bhupalpally, and either Tandur or Vikarabad.
While IMR, TFR, MMR, etc., are traditional yardsticks to measure the quality of healthcare available to the population over a period of time, the State’s health wing during the Covid pandemic also displayed its ability to improvise and create infrastructure at a short notice.
Despite the initial difficulties during the Covid-19 pandemic, when there was no specific infrastructure available to treat Covid patients, the health department did create special oxygen lines, add more ICU beds, come up with stand-alone Covid care facilities at Gandhi Hospital, set up Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences (TIMS), improve capacity building by imparting training to health care workers and improve its ICU care facilities.
