Education Minister Suresh Bhardwaj and Health and Family Welfare Minister Vipin Singh Parmar today inaugurated the dialysis centre at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Hospital in Shimla. It is the 7th dialysis centre of the state. This facility is already available in Solan, Mandi, Kullu, Una, Bilaspur and Dharamshala districts.Speaking on the occasion, the Education Minister said it was a long pending demand for opening a dialysis centre in Shimla, which has been fulfilled today which would facilitate hundreds of patients coming to the regional hospital for treatment. He said this hospital was established during British regime and was catering to health needs of thousands of people and keeping this in view, the government was strengthening the facilities in this institute. He said that providing better health facilities in regional hospitals would reduce the pressure on medical colleges.He said that two days before taking oath as Chief Minister of the state, Jai Ram Thakur had visited this hospital and announced to set up a digital X-ray machine here. He urged the Health Minister to establish it soon.Health Minister Vipin Singh Parmar said that 'National Dialysis Programme' had been started under the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, under which the state got 7th dialysis centre. In this centre, BPL families would get free dialysis facility whereas APL families would get it at a minimum cost of Rs. 1169.He said that under the leadership of Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, the state government wants to take this facility to all the district and sub-division level hospitals. In the near future, dialysis canters would be opened in Chamba, Nurpur, Palampur and Paonta Sahib.
Vipin Singh Parmar said that so far 4709 people had been provided facility for dialysis in the state under this scheme. He said earlier, people of the state had to go for treatment out of the state, resulting in wastage of money as well as time.The Health Minister said that continuous efforts were being made to strengthen health services in the state. Attempts were afoot to fill up vacant posts of different categories in the health institutes. He added 732 staff nurses would be appointed in near future and 50 percent of these would be filled up batch-wise and the entire recruitment process would be completed in four months. Similarly, posts of radiographers, OT assistants, ANMs and other technical staff had also been created and were being filled up through Subordinate Services Commission. He said that 300 posts of doctors had been filled up through walk-in-interview and soon the post of 200 regular doctors would be filled through Public Service Commission.He assured that the digital X-ray machine would be installed in DDU within two months for which tenders had already been invited. He said that DDU hospital was a historic building, so it will be restored without much tampering.The Health Minister said that efforts of the government were to at least fill up all functional posts so that people did not return back without getting treatment facility from the hospitals. He said though the health standards of state were very good as compared to many other states, yet the state government was making all out efforts to make Himachal Pradesh as an ideal state of the country in the health sector.Chief Medical Officer Neeraj Mittal welcomed the Education Minister and Health Minister while Senior Medical Superintendent Ranjana Rao thanked him.SDM Shimla Neeraj Chandla, Medical Superintendent of Kamala Nehru Hospital Ambika Chauhan, Doctors and Para-medical staff of DDU Hospital were also present on the occasion.