One dist, one medical college plan in State, all medical colleges will be revamped: Deshmukh

By Lokmat English Desk | Published: February 15, 2021 08:50 PM2021-02-15T20:50:09+5:302021-02-15T20:50:09+5:30

YOGESH GOLE Aurangabad, Feb 15: Medical education minister Amit Deshmukh today said that the state government will revamp the ...

One dist, one medical college plan in State, all medical colleges will be revamped: Deshmukh | One dist, one medical college plan in State, all medical colleges will be revamped: Deshmukh

One dist, one medical college plan in State, all medical colleges will be revamped: Deshmukh

YOGESH GOLE

Aurangabad, Feb 15: Medical education minister Amit Deshmukh today said that the state government will revamp the existing government medical colleges and implement One District One Medical College concept in Maharashtra.

Deshmukh was speaking with the senior editorial staff of Lokmat group at Lokmat Bhavan here today. Lokmat Media Editor-in-Chief Rajendra Darda welcomed him.

“After Coronavirus pandemic, we have all realised that medical education and healthcare sector needs more funds. It was observed that patients from districts which did not have medical college could not get superspeciality treatment and had to go to outside districts for Covid-19 treatment. Even setting up Covid-19 checking laboratory became difficult. Samples from districts like Hingoli and Gadchiroli were sent out for testing. That is why we are striving to set up medical colleges in all districts,’’ the minister said. Following are excerpts from discussions with him.

Teaching staff, infrastructure for new medical colleges

In Latur, late Vilasrao Deshmukh started a government medical college 20 years ago. From 100 beds hospital offering secondary care then, it has grown to a 1200-bed superspeciality facility now. We will have to start somewhere. We will explore avenues like funds from central, state governments, World Bank, private and public private participation to ensure that there is no dearth of money. There is, however, no plan to increase the retirement age of medical teachers.

Budgetary provisions for medical education

Currently, 3.25 per cent of budgetary provisions are earmarked for health and medical education and we have requested to raise it to 7 per cent. Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray is very serious about health and medical services. He has received global acclaim for handling of pandemic. Situation in a metro like Mumbai is under control. There is no second wave in the state. It is the idea of the CM to start medical colleges at places like Osmanabad, Raigad and Sindhudurg.

Shortage of medicines at govt hospitals

Medicines are regularly supplied and there is no shortage as such. There may be issues about medicines supplied and money not released to the contractor due to the long process involved. However, barring some exceptions, there have been no instances of patients suffering because there was no injection or medicine.

Costly medical equipment lying unused

We would ensure effective annual maintenance contracts with equipment providers to ensure that regular repairing of costly medical equipment at government colleges is done.

Three-party government in State

I do not understand this talk about the three-party government. At the Centre, 14-15 parties had formed coalition governments. In Maharashtra, 172 MLAs came together to accept new thoughts and everybody should accept this fact. In spite of spending thousands of crores of rupees on Corona, funding to basic services like rural development, water supply and medical education has not been reduced. The government is doing a good job.

Carrying forward legacy of Vilasrao

We all know how big the name, work and statue of Vilasrao Ji is. The love, blessings and good wishes the people had for him will strengthen us for a long time to come. It is a big responsibility to carry forward his legacy and what I can do is try to work on the path shown by him. People will decide what we did and we could not.

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