Expressing concern over people not getting proper medical care in the hills of Uttarakhand is spite of spending maximum on the health sector, Chief Minister Harish Rawat has asked officials to soon ensure adequate availability of doctors in the hill areas.
"It is strange that people's grievances regarding poor healthcare facilities in the hills are not being redressed in spite of the fact that we spend the largest portion of our budget on the the health sector," Rawat said.
He was speaking at the review meeting of the medical education and health department here yesterday and directed officials to speed up deployment of doctors inthe hill districts on a priority basis.
The process to deploy Ayurvedic doctors and dentists in the hills and setting up nursing colleges should be expedited, he said.
The Chief Minister also issued instructions for putting in place all infrastructural facilities and human resources at the Doon Medical College as per the norms laid down by the Medical Council of India.
The process to fill vacancies at the Doon Medical College must immediately be started and deployment of specialist doctors should also be made there, he said.
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"I had said even earlier that there may be skeletons still lying under lakhs of tonnes of debris lying in the area. The possibility can never be ruled out. Even when the ongoing combing operation concludes we cannot say with full confidence that we have found the last human remains," Rawat said.
The Chief Minister said that when he took over in February 2014, he was faced with the twin challenges of either scouring the jungles of Kedar valley to recover more bodies or take up the task of infrastructural reconstruction inthe Chardham area to put the state's economy back on track.
"I chose the latter and took a risk. However, I am happy to say this with satisfaction today that my efforts have paid off and we have been able to give the message of a safe Uttarakhand and Chardham Yatra to the outside world - a fact corroborated by the ever rising number of visitors to the four Himalayan shrines located in the state. We have set ourselves the target of taking this number to 30-40 lakh by 2018," he said.
He also claimed that the state government had single handedly carried out all the reconstruction work in the Kedar Valley and other affected areas out of its own limited resources as the Centre had never given a helping hand.
"We haven't received even one fourth of the relief package of Rs 8,000 crore approved by the Centre so far. Still we took on the massive challenge of reconstruction out of our own meagre resources and achieved a fair amount of success," Rawat said.
