PM Modi to inaugurate 9 medical colleges in UP, launch development projects

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate nine medical colleges and launch several development projects in Uttar Pradesh on Monday during a visit to the poll-bound state. He will inaugurate medical colleges from Siddharthnagar and will launch later in Varanasi "Pradhan Mantri Atmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana", the PMO said in a statement and added that he will also inaugurate various development projects worth more than Rs 5,200 crore for his Lok Sabha constituency.

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Prime Minister Atmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana (PMASBY) will be one of the largest pan-India scheme for strengthening healthcare infrastructure and will be in addition to the National Health Mission, the PMO said. Its objective is to fill gaps in public health infrastructure, especially in critical care facilities and primary care in both urban and rural areas. It will provide support for 17,788 rural health and wellness centres in 10 high focus states. Further, 11,024 urban health and wellness centres will be established in all the states.

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The PMO said critical care services will be available in all the districts of the country with more than five lakh population through exclusive critical care hospital blocks, while the remaining districts will be covered through referral services. People will have access to a full range of diagnostic services in the public healthcare system through a network of laboratories across the country, and integrated public health labs will be set up in all the districts. Under PMASBY, a national institution for one health, four new national institutes for virology, a regional research platform for WHO South East Asia Region, nine biosafety level-III laboratories, five new regional national centre for disease control will be set up, the PMO said. Nine medical colleges to be inaugurated are in the districts of Siddharthnagar, Etah, Hardoi, Pratapgarh, Fatehpur, Deoria, Ghazipur, Mirzapur and Jaunpur. Eight medical colleges have been sanctioned under the centrally sponsored scheme for “establishment of new medical colleges attached with district/referral hospitals” and one medical college in Jaunpur has been made functional by the state government through its own resources, it said.

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Under the centrally sponsored scheme, preference is given to underserved, backward and aspirational districts. The scheme aims to increase the availability of health professionals, correct the existing geographical imbalance in the distribution of medical colleges and effectively utilize the existing infrastructure of district hospitals. Under three phases of the scheme, 157 new medical colleges have been approved across the nation, out of which 63 medical colleges are already functional, the PMO said.