First Janta Clinic a hit with locals: Health dept official
JAIPUR: State’s first Janta Clinic, started at Valmiki Colony in Jaipur’s Malviya Nagar area, has become a hit with the number of patients visiting the clinic increasing day by day, said an official of the health department.
Chief minister Ashok Gehlot inaugurated the Janta Clinic last Wednesday to make health services easily available to people at their doorstep.
The health department official said that the number of patients visiting the Janta Clinic touched 100 in less than a week of its operation.
“On day 1, 27 patients came to the clinic. This increased to 55 t he ne x t d a y . On d a y 3 , 6 2 patients came to the clinic. On Saturday, the number went up to 82 and touched 100 on Sunday, the fifth day,” the official added.
The CM said in the first phase, the government will start 12 such clinics in Jaipur and three in Jodhpur to provide free primary health care to the poor in the urban areas.
Janta Clinics were announced in this year’s budget.
“We want to make healthcare facilities accessible to all. We are committed to make Rajasthan a leading state in the country in the area of health services and for the same Nirogi Rajasthan campaign and Janta Clinic have been launched,” Gehlot said at the launch on Wednesday.
The official quoted above said the number of patients at the Janta Clinic proves that such clinics will help reduce the burden of SMS Hospital, state’s biggest hospital, which gets more patients in its outpatient department (OPD) than All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi.
“Out of the 82 patients, who visited the clinic on Saturday, 47 were paid patients, and the remaining from the BPL and other exempted categories,” the official said.
“Eight follow-up patients came within 3 days,” he added.
The state government has launched the Nirogi Rajasthan (disease-free Rajasthan) campaign on its first anniversary. The c a mpaign i s a i med a t improving health facilities, focusing on health of people and encouraging them to adopt healthy lifestyle.
In his previous tenure, Gehlot started a free medicine scheme. This time, the state government has spread its score and included more than 100 new drugs in the list of free medicines.