The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Proposed urban health mission to target slum-dwellers

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Thursday, Dec 13, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Proposed urban health mission to target slum-dwellers

Special Correspondent

Panabaka Lakshmi launches campaign on ‘ksharasutra therapy’

— Photo: P.V. Sivakumar

Therapeutic issues: Union Minister of State for Health Panabaka Lakshmi with senior doctors at the State workshop on ‘ksharasutra therapy’ organised at Gandhi Medical College in Secunderabad on Wednesday.

HYDERABAD: The Centre will shortly launch the national urban health mission on the lines of National Rural Health Mission which was initiated two years ago.

Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Panabaka Lakshmi told a meeting here on Wednesday that the programme would target urban population living in slums. The preparatory work was completed.

She was speaking at the inauguration of a campaign-cum-workshop on ‘ksharasutra therapy’, a minimal invasive ayurvedic para-surgical measure to treat ano-rectal disorders.

The campaign is taken up by the Department of Ayush in all States as a follow-up to a similar programme at the national-level which was launched at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, in August.

Ambulance service

Ms. Lakshmi said the Centre had also proposed to extend ambulance services to the mandal-level throughout the country as part of the Reproductive and Child Health – II scheme. It would be networked with ‘108’ emergency service.

S.K. Sharma, Advisor, Department of Ayurveda, Delhi, said studies revealed that ‘ksharasutra’ (kshar meaning alkaline salt of plant origin and sutra is thread) was effective in treating piles, anal fissure and fistula. It was recognised as a cost-effective.

P. Venkateswara Rao, Commissioner, Andhra Pradesh Vaidya Vidhana Parishad, said patients suffering from these diseases were looking for relief and the system of medicine mattered little to them. A.Y. Chary, Director, Medical Education, said ano-rectal problems were the most difficult to manage. Vijay Kumar, Commissioner, Ayush, sought a comparative analysis of the treatment by ayurveda and allopathy systems.

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