Ghulam Nabi Azad lays Foundation Stone of Medical College & University

The Union Health & Family Welfare Minister, Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad laid the foundation stone of Doon Medical College at Dehradun and Agriculture University at Sehaspur in Uttarakhand.

He also launched Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakaram, Free Drug Service, National Iron Plus Initiative and National Ambulance Service in the State of Uttarakhand.

"Augmentation of human resources is one of cornerstones of our policy and many path breaking initiatives have been taken during the last four years in this direction" highlighted the Minister. He expressed his satisfaction from the fact that these initiatives have led to phenomenal increase in the medical seats.

Shri Azad stated that MBBS and Post Graduate seats have been increased by 18,412 and 10,093 respectively which marks an increase of 76% and 55% respectively and that 97 new medical colleges have been set up during this period in the country, thus taking the number from 290 to 387.

The Health Minister said that existing school health program was too weak and under-funded to realize the goal of securing the health of children and this prompted the Health Ministry to come up with a comprehensive and broad-based programme, Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakaram (RBSK).

The programme aims to screen 27 crore children up to the age of 18 years across the country for 4 Ds i.e Diseases and disabilities, defects and disorders.