Govt felicitates cured children to promote health scheme
Bhag Chand, a farmer of Narida village in Tonk district, was shocked when he was told by doctors in 2015 that his one-yearold daughter Khushi has a hole in her heart and the treatment would cost ₹7 lakh.
He had started losing hope until one day he came to know that the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) team is visiting the local anganbari centre to conduct a free health check-up. With a ray of hope in his eyes, he took his daughter to the anganbari centre, where the RBSK doctors referred Khushi for treatment at the Narayana Multispeciality Hospital in Jaipur.
The girl, now 3, was operated in May and now she is fine.
Khushi is among 50 children who were felicitated at the statelevel health promotion programme organised by the health minister at the Indira Gandhi Panchayatri Raj Sansthan auditorium on Monday.
In the three years, more than 1,000 children have undergone heart surgeries free of cost under the RBSK.
“We are felicitating these children so that people know (that)
JAIPUR:
health department is not just a department of data, but things actually take place here. It is to tell people that these children have been cured of heart diseases,” said National Health Mission chief Naveen Jain.
The RBSK was launched on October 2, 2014.
It is a comprehensive programme for children up to 18 years and the objective is to conduct free health check-up of children to detect 30 possible diseases in early stage and provide treatment.
“In the health check-up, if any child is found suffering from any serious disease, the child is immediately referred to the hospital and free treatment is provided and if required, even free surgery is done,” said Jain.
Under the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram, health check-up of more than 1.28 crore children has been done in the state since 2014, of which 5.69 lakh children were referred to health institutions for treatment, including heart surgeries of 1,015 children and other surgeries of 3,090 children, Jain informed.