Nearly 78 per cent of the West Bengal's population were dependent on the government's healthcare delivery system, state minister Chandrima Bhattacharya said today.
The minister for Health and family welfare, Bhattacharya informed the Assembly that the majority of the people subscribe to the government healthcare system, which she claimed, had been revamped and improved after 34 years of Left Front rule which had completely damaged it.
She was reacting to the Opposition's remarks that most people go to other states for getting treated.
She said that many services had been made free for patients, adding that the medicines supplied through the fair price shops were being verified by the drug controller and were not inferior quality as many Opposition members alleged.
Replying during the demand for budgetary grant of the department, she said that allocation during the four years of Trinamool Congress rule had been doubled from the level which existed before.
She said 20 super-speciality hospitals in the districts would be ready by 2016, while another 14 would be constructed by HRBC.
Congress leader Manas Bhuniya expressed doubt about the availability of specialist doctors in the would-be newly built super speciality hospitals.
Citing a recent news report in a vernacular daily about a super-speciality hospital in the city making arrangements for dialysis of a dog there, he sarcastically said that the government should think of coming up with a facility where both humans and animals can get treated.
