NAVEENA GHANATE
Hyderabad
Health Minister T. Harish Rao spoke to ‘The Pioneer’ ahead of the inauguration of the nine new TS government medical colleges.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao will virtually inaugurate the new medical colleges in Kamareddy, Karimnagar, Khammam, Jayashankar Bhupalpally, Komaram Bheem Asifabad, Nirmal, Rajanna Sircilla, Vikarabad and Jangaon Districts today (Friday) and classes will commence immediately. Here are the snippets from the interview.
What’s the idea behind the One-District-One-Medical-College policy?
Establishing a medical college brings four benefits. They are namely medical education and the addition of a 500 to 600-bed hospital with 150 super speciality doctors. Thus interior areas will get improved healthcare facilities. This will create 1,000 to 1,500 direct to indirect jobs. Finally, we spend Rs 400-Rs 500 crore which will lead to development in that area. For us, the focus is treatment and hospital services. Earlier, any serious case from North Telangana used to come to Gandhi Hospital and from South Telangana to Osmania GH. On the way itself half the patients used to die. Now they will get treatment at their doorsteps.
What about the opposition criticism that the government had not sent proper proposals to establish the medical colleges?
Now, Eatala Rajender is in the BJP. When he was health minister, twice he sent proposals to Delhi and met the Union Health Minister in New Delhi. Dr Lakshma Reddy also did that. The Centre sanctioned 157 medical colleges all over the country, but not even a single one was given to Telangana. AIIMS Bibinagar is a Central institute. The State need not give anything. Even then we gave them land and buildings which were constructed for NIMS at a cost of Rs 400 crore to Rs 500 crore without taking a penny. But even now if you go to AIIMS Bibinagar you will see that students who study there don’t have facilities for practical, no operation theatre, no in-patients and no blood bank. There is nothing at the AIIMS except an OP. The management and students requested me to allow the students to use the government district hospital at Bhuvanagiri.
We allowed them and they are doing practical there and are getting exposure in the State government’s district hospital. Last year, we started eight new medical colleges. They are running better than the AIIMS. You cannot compare any TS government medical college with the AIIMS. We are far better than the AIIMS.
For instance, the TS Government Medical College at Kothagudem has started already with a 400-bed hospital. There are students, and practical is being held, but in AIIMS there is nothing. They are more into talking and less into doing.
What has changed in medical education after 2014?
Telangana was badly neglected in United AP. We used to have five medical colleges in TS. Of that three were very old. Osmania was established in the Nizam era, Gandhi during the British era and the Kakatiya Medical College in Warangal was established by farmers and local businesses. The remaining two colleges came after the TRS was formed as we fought for it. In 2008, the Adilabad Medical College and in 2013, the Nizamabad Medical College were established. Telangana students used to go to China, Ukraine, the Philippines etc to study medicine. They had to learn local languages there to study. Some used to go to Karnataka and Maharashtra. They used to pay huge amounts and there was a lot of pressure. Here they didn’t have the opportunity, so they were forced to go there. We have the largest number of MBBS seats. For every lakh population we have 22 seats and we are number one in the country now. For every lakh population, we have eight PG seats and we are number two in the country in that. TS produces 10,000 medicos every year.
Why have you reserved medical seats?
Why we are doing all this is to ensure that our students will get an opportunity to study MBBS. In B-category seats, in private colleges 50% will be taken by the state and given free, 15% by the Centre which would be filled through NEET, and for the remaining 35% B-category they take applications from all over the country and depending on the rank admissions are given. So we took a decision to reserve that 35% also for locals. Students from Karnataka, Maharashtra and north India were coming to Telangana due to the good infrastructure here. Our students were losing due to that. There was some resistance from private college managements. But with this, we got 1,300 seats. As TS and AP were one for 10 years 15% of seats would be reserved for TS and AP. TS students were not going to AP, but AP students were coming to Telangana. We have established many colleges. We had 20 medical colleges in the state, now we have 56 medical colleges. We added 36 new medical colleges. So we are losing seats in the 15% common quota. So we took a decision to restrict it to 20 colleges on the date of bifurcation. With this, we got 520 seats. Now 1,820 additional seats are available to Telangana which is almost like establishing 18 new medical colleges.
Ragging is on the rise. How do you plan to tackle it?
We act very tough on ragging. Earlier, in Nalgonda we debarred students. The other day in Gandhi also we took strong action. The action is not just by the DME but by the police too. We also gave a police complaint and they issued an FIR. Whoever it is we will debar. If they don’t change, we will remove them from the college. This will be the rule in all colleges.
In the last two years after you took up the health portfolio what is your biggest achievement?
There are many achievements. NITI Aayog itself gave us the third rank in the country. In providing health services for the poor we are the third best state in the country. We have bypassed Maharashtra and only Kerala and Tamil Nadu are ahead of us. We are trying to reach the number two and number one slots. Medical colleges itself is a big achievement. We also have 500 Basti Dawakhanas and 3,000 Palle Dawakahans. We are adding 10,000 super speciality beds. One is the health city in Warangal which has 2,000 beds, which will be completed in the next 3 to 4 months. Already 18 storeys have been completed and four more storeys remain. There will be four TIMS on all four sides of Hyderabad with 1,000 beds each, that is, a total of 4000 beds will be completed in nine months. We are making NIMS a 1,000-bed hospital and it will be completed in a year. We are ahead for the next 30 years in health services.
What can people expect from the Health department?
On the day of TS formation, 30% of deliveries used to be in government hospitals and 70% in private hospitals. Today, 76.8% of deliveries are in government hospitals and the remaining in private ones. It is quite the opposite which means availability has increased, services have increased and confidence has increased among people. Previous governments never thought of demand, populations and new diseases. Telangana is now a vaccine hub, pharma hub, and IT hub and it is becoming a medical hub too. To become a medical hub you need medical graduates, post-graduates, technicians and nurses. All this should be there. So not just medical colleges we are starting a B.Sc nursing college and one BSc paramedic college in all districts. Now we will have enough manpower and more private and government hospitals will come. People from South Asia, Africa and Gulf countries will come here for treatment.
