Foreign Pharmacy News-section - International Drug Mart

Health Ministry Sets up North East Division

Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has set up a separate North-East division to address the health-care needs of the region as well as for the effective implementation of the National Rural Health Mission in the area. A regional research centre has also come up at Guwahati for providing capacity building inputs to the North-Eastern States. The regional resource centre will help the State Health and Family Welfare Departments of North-Eastern States to ensure fuller implementation of the NRHM.

According to Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramdoss, nearly Rs. 5 crore has already been released by the Centre during the current year to Assam for the training of the voluntary female community health activists in every village. Further, Rs. 23.60 crore has been released to all the North-Eastern states for the upgradation of two community health centres in every district having Indian public health standards. United fund of Rs. 7.56 crore has also been given to the North-Eastern States for use by the sub-centres. These funds are already in the process of percolating down to the districts to accomplish the benchmark activities in a mission mode in the region. The upgraded community health-care centres to the level of IPHS will ensure availability of round the clock referral services in each district under the mission.

The Health Minister also said that the NRHM has a special focus on 18 states including all the 8 North-Eastern States, which have relatively weak demographic indicators. This is the 8th launch of the mission in the series after Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttranchal besides New Delhi. During the five-year mission period, all distortions in the health-sector will be corrected by stepping up its share from 0.9 per cent to 2 to 3 per cent of GDP. This year, the government has already stepped up the allocation for health care delivery by 30 per cent. But the challenge before us, is to transform the increased outlay into measurable outcomes, the Minister said.

November 10, 2005