BANGALORE: The Government will establish a diabetes research centre and a 100-bed general hospital in Bangalore. The research centre is being set up in view of the increase in the incidence of diabetes in Bangalore, where nearly 25 per cent of the population is diabetic.

Minister for Health and Family Welfare R. Ashok told presspersons here on Thursday that work on the research centre and the hospital would begin in about two months. The general hospital will be established at the Leprosy Centre compound on Magadi Road at a cost of Rs. 30 crore and the diabetes research centre on a 35-acre plot in Indiranagar. A sum of Rs. 10 crore has been sanctioned for construction work.

Nephrology unit

A nephrology unit will start functioning at Victoria Hospital here in a month, and it will offer free treatment to the poor.

Mr. Ashok said the Government had released Rs. 28 crore to set up Ayurveda, Unani and homoeopathy wings in all district hospitals.

Revolving fund

The Health Department has set up a revolving fund with an initial allocation of Rs. 7 crore to deliver free medical services to people from the Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribes.

The fund can be made use of for heart, kidney and brain surgery.

The department has issued a circular directing all government hospitals and health centres not to turn away people bitten by stray dogs because of shortage of vaccines. The hospitals have been instructed to purchase anti-rabies vaccine using money from the user charge collected from patients.

A circular has been issued to all government hospitals and health centres advising doctors not to ask patients to purchase medicines from private pharmacies.

Only medicines that are not in stock can be prescribed with the permission of the head of the department concerned.

The Minister said the circular was issued following complaints from patients that doctors in government hospitals were issuing prescriptions under the pretext that medicines were not available. Nearly 600 types of drugs were being supplied to government hospitals and there was no shortage of medicines, he said.

Evening OPDs

To optimise services, he said Outpatient Departments (OPD) in all government hospitals would be open from 5.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. As OPDs in most of the hospitals were open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., daily wage workers and office-goers were not able to make use of the facility, Mr. Ashok said.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail