ITANAGAR, 25 Aug: “The government of Arunachal Pradesh is on a mission mode to improve and strengthen healthcare in the state,” the chief minister’s office (CMO) informed in a release on Friday.
“In the past seven years, massive health infrastructure upgradation drive has been taken up in the state. District hospitals across the state are being upgraded. Community health centres, primary health centres, sub-centres and health & and wellness centres are being strengthened. Maternal and child care, institutional delivery points, critical and emergency care, cancer care, renal care, etc, are being improved,” it said.
While infrastructure is one arm of healthcare development, the state government is also cognisant of the need for human resource augmentation,” it said, and informed that, “in the last two-and-a-half years, the human resource gap has been substantially bridged, bringing it down from the erstwhile 33 percent to about 6 percent now.”
“In fact, the state government has already met the IPHS requirements of general duty medical officers, facing a shortage only in terms of specialists,” it added.
The release stated that “the council of ministers considered the various proposals submitted by the health & family welfare department to further strengthen healthcare services in the state through the three main components – prevention, curative and rehabilitation care services.”
Taking cognisance of the need to meet the emerging public health needs, the state cabinet approved the health department’s proposal to create a public health nursing cadre for further strengthening the nursing services across the state through creation of 450 posts of public health nursing cadre in Groups C, B and A, it said.
“Public health nursing plays an important part in prevention of diseases. It covers wide ranges of services at CHC-, PHC- and sub-centre levels and has a role in reducing disease outbreaks and promoting a healthier lifestyle through outreach programmes and patient guidance, as well as attaining targeted primary healthcare coverage till the last mile,” the release informed.
“Additionally,” it said, “to meet the pressing secondary healthcare needs due to increasing footfall in the public health facilities, the council of ministers approved the proposal of the health department for creation of 623 posts of hospital nursing cadre, comprising Group B non-gazetted, Group B gazetted, and Group A posts. This step is a timely and historic measure to strengthen the hospital nursing services across the state,” the PR cell said.
Recognising the need to strengthen professional teaching of nursing curriculum and to meet the Indian Nursing Council norms, the council of ministers approved creation of five posts of associate professors (nursing) and 18 posts of assistant professors (nursing).
“Laboratory services are very important for providing and maintaining diagnostic services, which are being provided free of cost across the state. The state government has established and installed various modern labs, diagnostic and medical equipments like MRI, CT scan, ultrasound machines, digital X-rays, blood banks, etc, in the state.
“The free diagnostic initiative has benefitted the people of the state immensely and it is being expanded to the grassroots level, covering the PHCs and sub-centres.
“For proper upkeep and functional operations of the laboratories, the state cabinet approved the proposal of the health department to create an additional 192 posts of laboratory technicians.
“TRIHMS, the lone medical college in the state, has successfully produced first batch of final MBBS passed students who are now enrolled in the compulsory one-year internship programme,” it said, and added that “the government is keen to increase the intake capacity of 50 MBBS students to 110.”
Besides this, the TRIHMS has started services like cardiac cath lab, in addition to existing critical care services like ICUs, renal care, cancer care, etc.
To augment the human resource in the TRIHMS, the cabinet approved creation of 272 ancillary posts, including nursing officers, for the institute.
“Posts like lady health visitors and health assistants, which are integral part of health service delivery, are presently having multiple modes of entry and service conditions. Existing guidelines (like pay, age, educational qualification, etc) related to their service conditions have become archaic. To improve convergence and streamlining of their recruitment rules and provide for career progression, the cabinet approved the proposed new recruitment rules of lady health visitors and health assistants,” the release read.
The cabinet also approved creation of 28 nursing tutor posts as entry grade posts for ANM schools, “abolishing the erstwhile and redundant clinical instructor posts,” it said.
The council of ministers also approved creation of 623 posts of hospital nursing cadre; creation of 450 posts of public health nursing cadre; creation of 5 posts of associate professors (nursing), and 18 posts of assistant professors (nursing), besides creation of 272 ancillary posts, including nursing officers, technical assistant, etc, in the TRIHMS Medical College; 192 posts of laboratory technicians; creation of 28 tutor (nursing) posts in lieu of 28 clinical instructors (nursing); new recruitment rules for the post of health assistants; and new recruitment rules for the post of lady health officer, the release stated.
