Dharamsala News/Health indicators of Himachal are far better than national average: Health Minister

Dharamsala, November 24, 2013: “The State Government is committed to provide basic health care facilities to the people and a vast health infrastructure is been built up in the State along-with other facilities,” said  Health Minister Kaul Singh Thakur while presiding over the 17th Annual Conference of North Zone Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine .

He said that the health indicators of Himachal Pradesh were far better than the national average, including birth rate, crude death rate, infant mortality rate, fertility rate and the State had highest levels of institutional deliveries in the country.  He said the achievements of the State in family planning were high and encouraging and the State had achieved near elimination stage of leprosy whereas tuberculosis had also been brought under control with more than 88 percent cure rate.
Health Minister said all school going children were being examined mandatorily once in a year through School Health Camp and the process was being expanded to all children registered in the aanganwari centres. The free medical treatment was being given to all children in the age group of 0-18 years under RBSK in case of critical ailments and disability.
Kaul Singh Thakur said that the State had gone in for major expansion of ambulatory services under National Ambulance Scheme and it was the first State in the country to provide for inter facility transfer of critical patients. The State had expanded the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna to cover an additional 1.5 lakh families including MNREGA workers during the current year.