The Pioneer, March 25, 2010
Pioneer News Service, Bhubaneswar
Appreciating Union Health Minister Gulam Nabi Azad’s recent assurance for 10,000 additional medical post graduates in the nation, Lebanon-based non-resident Odia (NRO) Prof Digambara Patra has urged the Centre to establish a Post Graduate Medical Institute with 1000-bed Super Speciality Hospital having higher medical programmes like MBBS, MD/MS /DM/M.Ch/MDS/Ph.D at Kalahandi in the KBK region in the line of North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute for Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) in Shillong.
Patra, in his letters to Azad, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Chief Minister Naveen Pattnaik, argues that Kalahandi and the KBK region has not yet been given appropriate attention by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare though the region of Odisha is one of the terribly backward pockets in the country with rampant instances of malaria, tuberculosis (TB), et al.
“The region is suffering a lot in tertiary health facilities due to Governmental negligence and ignorance”, he remarks adding hundreds of lives are being lost due to water borne diseases for years and 2007 and 2009 were the worst bringing Kalahandi to both the national and international attention for poorer health care.
Medical facilities are very poor in the region and there is shortage of doctors and health professionals. There is no tertiary health facility in the Kalahandi-Nuapada region and a Postgraduate Medical Institute would immensely benefit Kalahandi and its surrounding pockets, Patra observes.
Bringing home to his point, Patra has pointed out that the Central Government has established North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute for Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) in Shillong realising the importance of health facilities in those hilly terrains and tribal pockets.
“Nothing has been made in Kalahandi/Nuapada and in the KBK region in general which is evaluated worse than the North-Eastern States so far tertiary health facilities are concerned”, the NRO rues adding though the Central Government gives equal importance to the KBK region along with the North-Eastern States in irrigation and social developments, unfortunately in tertiary health facilities, Kalahandi or the KBK region has not yet been given appropriate attention by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Kalahandi is centrally located in the KBK and 200 km radius of it is extremely backward in tertiary health facilities in Odisha including districts like Kandhamal, Boudh, Gajapati and Padampur sub-division as well as the backward Dhamtari, Raipur, Kanker and Bastar districts of adjacent Chhattisgarh. Most of these districts come under tribal backwardness, backward due to hilly areas and drought and recently all these regions are getting more Maoist-infested due to lack of developmental activities in infrastructure and health, Patra further argues.
He also points out that Bhubaneswar is about 500/600 km from Kalahandi/Nuapada and though many Government and private medical colleges including an AIIMS type institution are coming in the State’s capital region, nothing has materialised in Kalahandi/Nuapada so far following which the people of Odisha have also petitioned for a similar institute in Kalahandi.
Such an institute would act as a national hub for higher medical education and research and a nodal centre and referral hospital for existing Government Medical Colleges of all the naxal-affected States, the NRO concludes.
No comments:
Post a Comment