Healthcare services at doorsteps; 657 new Community Health Officers appointed-Sidhu
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in/ Chandigarh
The Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu issued the appointment letters to 657 Community Health Officers.
Disclosing this here, Balbir Singh Sidhu said that to provide primary healthcare services to the patients at their doorsteps especially in rural area, the Punjab Government is converting all the 2950 sub centers of the state into Health & Wellness centers (HWCs) in a phased manner. The services in HWCs will be provided through Community Health Officer (CHO) along with team of Multi-Purpose Health Workers (male and female) & ASHAs placed at HWCs.
The Health Minister said that now state has a pool of 1582 CHOs, working in HWC/Sub-centers while total 1365 Health and Wellness Centers (HWCs) were already operationalized in the state. 925 CHOs have already been posted in these centers after imparting a special training program of 6 months.
Balbir Singh Sidhu divulged that 27 essential medicines and 6 Diagnostics test are being made available in adequate quantity at these centers to support the expanded range of services. The HWCs will be a game changer to increase health system responsiveness to people by brining services closer to communities. The special focus of H&WCs is on screening people for chronic disease like hypertension, diabetes, asthma etc. and provides free medicines for the same.
Notably, state level program has not been organized to issue the appointment letters to CHOs following the instructions of the Health Minister regarding the COVID-19.
March,17,2020
