HEALTH

Comprehensive health scheme for rural areas soon
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 22
The Union Government will initiate a comprehensive health scheme to offer integrated packages at rural and district levels in the country.

Giving details about the scheme, which would be formally announced by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, next month, the Union Health Minister, Dr Anbumani Ramadoss, today said the government has planned to integrate the RCH, Population stabilisation programme and the immunisation programme for the rural areas in the country. Dr Ramadoss was on his maiden visit to city to inaugurate an Advanced Urology Centre at the PGI and Block-C at the GMCH, Sector 32, today.

Divulging more on the government’s population stability programme, the minister said the programme would focus on creating awareness about population stabilisation but would not be an incentive-based scheme for keeping the population under check.

Under this scheme, special focus would be on Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttaranchal and North-eastern states.

“The Prime Minister’s focus is on education and health sectors. And our ministry is working on strengthening the health facilities provided at the rural level,’’ added the minister.

The Minister, however, clarified that the government’s population stability programme will be voluntary and no one will be forced into it. “The population stabilisation programme will be completely voluntary and is aimed at creating awareness, improving basic infrastructure at the rural level, and roping in the private sector to extend the facilities to villages and districts,’’ added Dr Ramadoss while talking to the mediapersons at the GMCH, Sector 32. Showing concern about the poor sex ratio and the incidences of female foeficide, especially in Punjab, Haryana and even Delhi, the Health Minister said the situation would be monitored strictly. “I have already met the Punjab health secretary in this regard and shown concern that in a highly developed state like Punjab the situation is a cause for concern,’’ said Dr Ramadoss.

Emphasising more on the public-private sector cooperation in the implementation of various health policies, the minister said the government is trying to rope in many private players especially in providing services at the rural and district levels. ``We are planning to extend loans and facilities of insurance for the doctors from the private sector who collaborate with us,’’ added Dr Ramadoss.

Listing down the priorities of his ministry in dealing with the communicable and non-communicable diseases, Dr Ramadoss said that in the coming years the focus of the government would be on cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer, mental health and ailments related to senior citizens.

Commenting on the need to properly channelise and regulate the medical education provided by a large number of institutions in the country, the minister said he would recommend a formation of a committee to regulate the fee structure and the seats offered to students in management and general quota.

HIV patients to get drugs free of cost
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 22
Chandigarh will have the provision of giving anti-retroviral drugs free of cost to the HIV positive patients by the end of this year. Union Health Minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss said this here today that all the separate zones marked for the HIV/AIDS monitoring will be extended this facility by the end of this year, including Chandigarh.

The free anti-retrivol drugs, which cost anything between Rs 2,500 to Rs 4,000 per month to an HIV positive patient are already been given free of cost at nine high risk zones for the HIV including Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

The minister also assured the staff crunch at the GMCH would be taken care of by the government as he would take up the matter of allocating more faculty with the Prime Minister and the planning commission. He said that the Medical College should work towards increasing the undergraduate seats from current 50 to 100 seats and should get approval from the National Board for specialised post graduate courses.

About the plan of the former Health Minister Sushma Swaraj of opening six AIIMS level hospitals in the country, the present health minister said that the matter is “still under consideration” and the talks of roping in more finances for the project are underway.

The Health Minister, inaugurated the Advanced Urology Centre (AUC) at PGI in the morning and then proceeded to the GMCH to inaugurate the Block C of the hospital. The AUC at the PGI, with a bed strength of 50 and a provision of 16 operation tables has come up with the cost of Rs 5.2 crore.

The controversy surrounding the Deputy Director Administration (DDA), PGI Ms Meeta Rajivlochan has not been resolved so far. Dr Ramadoss declined to give any reply when asked about the pending matter. “This is an administrative matter and we are still examining the case. We will soon take a decision on it,” he replied, when questioned about Rajivlochan’s fate and the demands to repatriate her to her parent state Maharashtra. The DDA had been asked to proceed on indefinite leave by the Health Ministry after she issued a circular last month challenging the authority of the PGI director. She had also filed a reply (to the show cause served on her) which is submitted to the minister.

The dispute over the seniority in PGI between Prof Sudha Suri and Prof Sarala Gopalan for acquiring the Institute’s deanship too was not resolved at the governing body meeting today. At the meeting, which was chaired by Dr Ramadoss as its president it was decided that the Health Ministry will formulate guidelines to resolve the issue which is also pending in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Sources say that the recommendations of the ministry will be tabled in the PGI’s next general body meeting which will take place within three months. Meanwhile the minutes of the Standing Finance Committee meeting were ratified by the general body.

DC’s claim on water-borne diseases
Tribune News Service

Panchkula, September 22
There has been a fall in water-borne diseases in the district due to measures taken by the health authorities.

This was claimed by Deputy Commissioner, Ms Neelam P. Kasni, who said that diarrhoea and hepatitis cases in the district had gone down as compared to last year. She said that diarrhoea cases reported were 256, as compared to 1050 cases reported in the corresponding period last year.

She said that as compared to 26 cases of hepatitis reported in September last year, only two cases have been reported in September till now.

Civil Surgeon, Dr Satvir Chaudhary, said that till August this year they had done 15,942 orthotoludine tests, 303 water samples had been tested. He said that more than 1,74,000 halogen tablets have been distributed in various slum areas and six teams were deputed in slum areas to educate people about use of boiled and chlorinated water.

SPORTS

Khalsa Club beat Royal Club in football tie
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, September 22
Chandigarh Senior Men Football championship began here today at Football Stadium, Sector 17. Fifteen teams are taking part in the meet which was inaugurated by Mr Ravinder Talwar, President, Chandigarh Football Association.

In the first tie, Khalsa Club, Sector 44, beat Royal Club, Sector 30, by 5-0 with half-time score being 1-0. In the second tie, AG, Audit, Haryana scored four goals against the Maruti Football Club.

In the third tie, RBI Football Club defeated Mauli Jagran Football Club by three goals in a tie-breaker.

In the fourth match, the Football Club, Sector 21, defeated the Golden Football Club, Panjab University, 4-1 in a tie-breaker after score remained 1-1 in the stipulated time.

In the fifth match, Coaching Centre, Sector 17, beat the Maruti Football Club ‘A’ team by 4-0.

In the sixth minute, AG, Audit, beat the Lal Bahadur Shastri Club 3-1. In the seventh tie, Garhwal Rifles defeated the Youngsters Club 1-0.

Under-19 cricket

Panchkula District XI team continued with their winning spree with defeating Yamunanagar District in the Haryana State Inter-District Under-19 Cricket meet tie played at Shivaji Stadium, Panipat. It was Mandeep Singla who scored 56 runs for the Panchkula team.

Brief scores; Panchkula: 174 runs for eight in 30 overs (Mandeep Singla 56, Vishal Goel 37, Varun Khanna 19, Tejwinder Gill 13, Deepak 4 for 16, Mandeep 2 for 36.

Yamunanagar: 100 runs all out in 27 overs (Abhimanyu 10, Mandeep17, Jitende Billa 2 for 16, Sunny Sharma 2 for 7, Nitin Mehtani 2 for 21).

Meanwhile, the Panchkula District Cricket Association has selected 24 probables for Pataudi Trophy through the selection trials held today.

The probables are: Vishal Sahni, Vishal Goel, Mandeep Singla, Sunny Sharma, Ajay Disodia, Nitin, Tejwinder Gill, Nitin Rathee, Kulwinder Singh, Vipan Dhiman, Daksh Talwar, Karan Malik, Dhiraj Kumar, Roobal Kapil, Jitender Billa, Arvind Rawat, Parveen Sharma, Jaspreet, Joravar Singh, Prayas, Sunny Kularia, Manav Asopa, Deepak Lohatia and Umesh Kaira.

Kabaddi meet concludes

Girls of the MCM DAV College for Women, Sector 36, outplayed Coaching Centre, Sector 42, to bag the women title in the Chandigarh State Kabaddi Championship which concluded at the Sector 42 Sports Complex here on Wednesday. The meet was organised by the Chandigarh Kabaddi Association.

Probables for Pataudi Trophy

The Chandigarh Cricket Association, affiliated to the Haryana Cricket Association, has selected 22 probables for the Pataudi Trophy. According to Mr Surinder Singh ‘Baijee’, secretary of the association, the probables are: Vineet Jain, Ajay Sikka, Sunil, Ravinder Nain, Sarul Kanwar, Rajesh Patha, Michael Vishal, Mahesh Bisht, Sumit, Charanjit, Prashant Bahaguna, Kamalpreet, Karanjit, Sansa Bali, Yuvraj, Karandeep, Anwar, Girish Bhanot, Akam, S. Bhan, Jagjit, Pawan, Saurabh Arora, Bharat Kumar, Samandeep and Amit Verma.

Inter-college kho-kho

Panjab University, Chandigarh defeated Arya College, Ludhiana, by one turn and 14 points while the Khalsa College for Women, Sidhwan Khurd, beat the National Institute of Nursing, PGI, Chandigarh, by one turn and 12 points in the PU Inter-College Zonal Kho-Kho (women) Tournament played here on the PU campus.