Health remains priority of our govt, says Balbir Sidhu

Tribune News Service

Mohali, June 20

Emphasising that the health facilities will be provided in every corner of the district, Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu today said the development works being carried out under the leadership of Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh across the state would not be stopped at any cost.

Sidhu was speaking during the foundation stone laying ceremony of the primary health centre at Saneta village. The state-of-the-art facility will be build at a cost of Rs 2.96 crore.

“Rs 2.96 crore will be spent on the primary health centre and the building will be completed in six months. The PHC will have a separate budget for equipment, furniture and other requirements,” said Sidhu.

He thanked the Saneta residents, including sarpanch Bhagat Ram and other panchayat members for giving 22 kanal land for the PHC.

The minister also said there would be no shortage of land to turn the PHC into a major hospital in future.

“With the formation of this PHC, the nearby villages will also get easy access to health facilities. A long-standing demand of the residents has been met with the start of this project,” he said.

Sidhu said his government was giving top priority to the health facilities.

“Five new government medical colleges are being set up at Mohali, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Malerkotla, which will provide a major impetus to the medical education in the state,” he informed.

A medical college is being started at the site of Civil Hospital in Phase 6, Mohali, and it has been proposed to set up the hospital at Sector 66, for which the process of acquiring nine acres of land from GMADA is almost complete, Sidhu added.

“In order to make health facilities accessible to all, the provision of health facilities in rural and urban areas will be further strengthened. There is also a proposal to set up a PHC at Aerocity, Mohali,” said the minister.

Talking about the Covid pandemic, Sidhu said there was huge awareness among the people about the vaccination now.

“The state government is working day and night to vaccinate maximum number of people in the state. The government has also increased the Covid testing,” he said, adding that due to the efforts of the government the cases have started to decline.

Sidhu, meanwhile, appealed to the people to take all the precautionary measures against the corona infection and follow the instructions issued by the Punjab Government.