CM inaugurates projects worth over ₹180 crore at Thiruvananthapuram MCH

Corporatisation of the private health sector in the State is pushing up health-care costs for the people and this is the newest challenge facing the State’s health sector, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said.

He was inaugurating 15 projects worth more than ₹180 crore at Thiruvananthapuram Government Medical College Hospital here on Monday.

While both the public as well as private sector have been playing a key role in improving the State’s health sector, the recent trend of the corporate takeover of private hospitals is quite worrying because it has led to a significant escalation in treatment costs.

This is where the medical colleges in the State are becoming more relevant, because the government has been making huge investments in ushering in super-speciality care facilities in these institutions, he said. The Aardram Mission has changed the face of the State’s health sector right from primary care upwards and this has been recognised at the national level too, Mr. Vijayan added.

The changes brought into the State’s health sector have been significant and people-centric, something that was much appreciated by the Vice-Chairman of NITI Aayog when he visited Wayanad recently. Kerala’s public hospitals have been serving thousands of patients daily and the State is without doubt the topmost in healthcare in the country, he said.

The Government Medical College Hospital at Thiruvananthapuram, the oldest in the State, stands tall, for not just people from across the State, even those from neighbouring States have been depending on this institution for expert care. In the past nine years, development worth ₹2,069 crore have been sanctioned for Thiruvananthapuram MCH for improving physical infrastructure as well as patient care, reflecting the Government’s commitment to people’s health

Using KIIFB (Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board), the State has implemented development projects worth ₹62,000 crore in the last five years, of which projects worth ₹10,000 crore were in the health sector, the Chief Minister said.

Health Minister Veena George, who presided over the function, said that there were attempts from many quarters to portray Kerala’s health sector as “ailing” but that the government hospitals have been fulfilling the healthcare requirements of ordinary people.

She pointed to the huge leap in infrastructure in the State’s medical colleges and the fact that Kerala has the highest number of medical education seats.

New departments such as Critical Care, Genetics, Geriatrics, and Paediatric Interventional Neurology have been started. The CARE project, launched for treatment of rare diseases, has drawn national attention and for the first time, a Government Medical college has entered the national ranking list, she noted

General Education Minister V. Sivankutty, Food and Civil Supplies Minister G.R. Anil, MLA Kadakampally Surendran, district panchayat president D. Suresh Kumar, KIIFB CEO Dr. K.M. Abraham, Additional Chief Secretary ( Health) Rajan N. Khobragade, Director of Medical Education K.V. Viswanathan, among others, were present