February 18, 2019
Big jump in patients getting treated at government hospitals
That the State Health Department has been shining under the Trinamool Congress was never in doubt, when compared to the years under the Left Front.
Under the personal supervision of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the department has achieved a lot on many fronts.
One of the metrics to prove this is the number of patients availing treatment in government hospitals and health centres, which numbers were revealed recently by a senior official of the Health Department. The number has seen a big jump – of more than three-and-a-half times – from about Rs 3.56 crore to approximately Rs 13 crore.
The exact numbers are 3 crore 55 lakh 60 thousand in financial year (FY) 2011-12, the first year of the Trinamool Congress rule, jumping to 12 crore 97 lakh 14 thousand in FY 2017-18.
Now let us look at the division between the number of outdoor patients and indoor patients, the former being obviously much higher always.
While in FY 2011-12, the number was 3.48 crore, it became 12.32 crore in 2017-18, which is a rise of about 3.5 times; the number of indoor patients in the corresponding FYs was 7.6 lakh and 65.14 lakh, which is a rise of about 8.5 times.
Now let us look at more recent numbers. Till December 2018, that is, in the first nine months of FY 2018-19, the number of outdoor patients was 9.94 crore; by the end of the financial year, that is, March 2019, according to this official, this number is most likely to rise to 13.23 crore.
The number of indoor patients till December 2018 was 50.7 lakh, which is expected to rise to 66.76 lakh by the end of March 2019. Hence, compared to FY 2017-18, the number for 2018-19 would rise further still, to become almost 14 crore in total.
There are six primary reasons for the rise in numbers, which are given below:
- The building of super-speciality hospitals has enabled superior treatment to reach almost all corners of the State
- The setting up of various specialised units like NICU, PICU, SNCU, SNSU, ITU and HDU, and increasing the number of ICU beds, in government hospitals across the State
- The setting up of fair price medicine shops
- The setting up of fair price diagnostic centres
- Bringing modern instruments like linear accelerator, digital X-ray machines, etc. in more government hospitals
- The more number of skilled doctors, that is still more than in private hospitals
People are now much more ready to get treated at government hospitals, and they are seeing positive results as well.
Source: Bartaman
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